Maths to the rhinos’ rescue

The Wits School of Computational and Applied Mathematics is hosting a one-day symposium to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of Prof. Tony Starfield who spent his career teaching in this field.

During the symposium participants will also tackle South Africa’s rhino-question with a session set aside for modelling the economic and population dynamics of the rhino. A large number of rhinos are killed in South Africa annually and participants will be looking at mathematical ways to protect the species.

Starfield was Professor of Applied Mathematics at Wits University from 1969 to 1979. He spent most of his career doing research in Computational and Mathematical Modelling. He is also the sponsor of the Starfield Modelling Prizes in Computational and Applied Mathematics III and Computational and Applied Mathematics Honours at Wits. Former prize-winners will also attend the symposium and present talks.

The symposium will be wide ranging and will include spatial models, simulation models, agent-based models as well as mathematical models. It will look to the future and how Computational and Mathematical Modelling will develop in the twenty-first century.

A panel consisting members who are knowledgeable about the rhino problem and environmental economics will spearhead the session to define a modelling project to address the issues around rhino poaching and trade. Increase rhino poaching is a huge threat that could crumble all of the past successes in rhino conservation.

This symposium takes place on Saturday, the 21^st of April 2012.

For details, click here.