Past Conferences

The first Buea International Conference on the Mathematical Sciences held on the campus of the University of Buea, Cameroon, from May 12 - 16, 2009. The conference generated intense broad interest and was a big success, with 56 technical presentations and over 100 participants (49 international). Many expressed interest in being involved with future conferences, so... here comes the second conference in May 2011 !

2009 Conference Information

2009 Conference Workshop on Matheamatical Biology

Link here for NSF award

Figure 1: Workshop Participants

Description:
The general workshop goals were “to bring together distinguished scientists whose specialties involve mathematics, applied mathematics and dynamical systems and mathematical biology to provide a medium for the exchange of information and ideas among mathematical scientists, promote research that will lead to effective new mathematical and computational methods and techniques for science, engineering, industry, and society, and provide a medium for mathematicians outside of Cameroon to engage actively in the development of mathematics in Cameroon, in particular, and Africa, in general.”

The primary goal of the workshop was to initiate contact between US mathematicians and mathematicians from Cameroon and the Central African Sub-region as a whole as well as mathematicians from the world at large to create opportunities for discussion and collaboration.

In summary, the workshop was to :

• Provide opportunities for formal and informal interaction between African and US junior faculty and graduate students and with internationally renowned mathematicians;
  
• Enable mathematicians to collaboratively explore selected open problems in mathematical biology;
  
• Enable scholars from the US, Europe, and Africa with a shared interest in mathematical biology to meet and network with the immediate goal of establishing research collaborations;
  
• Promote both short- and long-term collaboration between these mathematicians; and
  
• Initiate discussion of the creation of country-wide and/or regional networks of African scholars and students interested in conducting research in mathematical biology, with the potential long-range goal of establishing professional associations.
  

The workshop started on Friday May 15 at 9am with 50 participants. It dovetailed nicely with the First International Conference on Mathematics, which took place from May 12-14 at the same venue as the workshop. On Friday May 15, the workshop commenced with a short opening remark from Drs. Gideon Akumah Ngwa, Abba Gumel and Philip Maini. Drs. Abba Gumel and Philip Maini presented the workshop problems and their descriptions to participants. There were four main topics of interest selected by participants from a group of 15 possible choice areas. They areas were: Mathematical modeling of malaria, Modeling HIV/AIDS, Modeling the dynamics of malaria mosquito vectors and Modeling tumor growth.. >From these four main topics 6 groups were formed to look at specific questions of interest with the malaria group subdivided into three subgroups. The groups were:

Malaria Group:

Group 1: Malaria subgroup 1: The effect of sickle cell disease on the dynamics and prevalence of malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Group 2: Malaria subgroup 2: Mathematical malaria models with different time scales and stochasticity.

Group 3: Malaria subgroup 3: Mathematical modeling of malaria with spatial consideration.

HIV/AIDS Group

Group 4: Design an optimal strategy for containing HIV using limited Anti Retro Viral (ARV) drugs in Africa (Are we better off treating lots of people early or late during the disease, taking into consideration side effects of these drugs and the development of drug resistances.

Mosquito Dynamics Group

Group 5: Modeling the mosquito (the malaria transmitting agent) population dynamics.

Modeling Tumour Group

Group 6: Efficiency of nutrient delivery in tumors: Can a suitable model be designed that shows that nutrient delivery is a bi-phasic function of vascular density?

Mentors and facilitators were assigned to each of the six groups as follows: Philip Maini (Tumour group), Abdul-Aziz Yakubu (the malaria groups and the mosquito dynamics group), Abba Gumel (the mosquito dynamics group and the HIV/AIDS group), Gideon Ngwa (the mosquito dynamics group) and Miranda I. Teboh-Ewungkem (the malaria groups).

We are thankful to the NSF, the SMB (Society of Mathematical Biology), MTN Cameroon (Mobile Telephone Network Cameroon) and the University of Buea for their support of the Workshop on Mathematical Biology.

Figure 2: More workshop pictures (l to r: Prof. Nuno De Silva , Portugal; Prof. Philip Maini, Oxford University, UK; Dr. Miranda I. Teboh-Ewungkem, Lafayette College;  Prof. Dan Burns, Univ. Of Michigan, Ann Arbor).

Figure 3: More workshop pictures (l to r: Dr. Angela Gallegos , Tulane/Occidental; Dr. Omayra Ortega, Arizona State University; Dr. Miranda I. Teboh-Ewungkem, Lafayette College; Valerie Nelson, Morgan State University; Dr. Sarah Olson Tulane University) .

Figure 47: More workshop pictures (l to r: Prof. Asamoah Nkwanta, Morgan State University; Dr. Miranda I. Teboh-Ewungkem, Lafayette College; Prof. Aziz Yakubu, Howard University;  Prof. Mama Foupouagnigni, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon) .