13. Professor Precious Sibanda

SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS, STATISTICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Professor Precious Sibanda is attached to the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, and based at the Pietermaritzburg Campus.

Prof. Sibanda attained both his MSc and PhD degrees in Applied Mathematics at the University of Manchester in 1992 and 1996, respectively. He has taught at UKZN since 2003. His main research interests are in theoretical fluid dynamics, primarily boundary layer theory and heat and mass transfer problems in non-Newtonian fluids. Other broad interests include some aspects of numerical analysis and mathematical biology.

He was rated a C2 researcher by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2011.

He is the author of over 60 journal articles, a number of book chapters and has presented at various local and international conferences. He has also supervised to completion over 10 MSc and PhD students, some of whom have gone on to forge very successful academic careers at other universities both in South Africa and other countries in Southern Africa. His current crop of postgraduate students comes from as far afield as India and Sudan.

In 2011 Sibanda was elected Vice-President of the South African Mathematical Association (SAMS) having successfully served as the association’s Financial Manager since 2008.

Outside academia his interests include road traffic accident reconstruction and investigation techniques. In a previous “lifetime” he taught these techniques to traffic police at a police training college in Harare.