University of Liverpool hosts first Joint Postgraduate Conference with AIMS
On 12-16 June 2023, the Department of Mathematical Sciences of the University of Liverpool hosted the first AIMS-UoL Joint Postgraduate Conference. The goal of this conference was to strengthen the existing links between AIMS and the University of Liverpool by bringing together postgraduate researchers from these two institutions.
Founded in 2003, the African Institute for Mathematics Sciences (AIMS) is a pan-African network of centres of excellence for post-graduate training in mathematical sciences, research and public engagement in STEM, which has centres in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Rwanda. In 2020, AIMS and the University of Liverpool signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Seven PhD students from AIMS travelled to Liverpool to participate in the conference, and a few more participated online. The conference had a total of 23 postgraduate talks and five invited talks from researchers from the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Liverpool.
On Wednesday afternoon, there was an outreach event where Year 8 students from local schools came to the University and met with the participants of the conference. The session had two parts: first a maths challenge activity where they had to solve problems by teams, which was followed by round-table discussions with PhD students from AIMS and Liverpool about what it is like to study maths at university level and their experiences doing a PhD degree at AIMS and Liverpool.
The organisers of the conference (Dr David Martí-Pete, Prof. Olivier Menoukeu Pamen and Dr Kamila Żychaluk) are grateful for the funding from the Enhancing Research Culture Fund 2022-5 of the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Liverpool, and hope that this will become a series of conferences that alternate between the University of Liverpool and one of the AIMS centres.