Professor Horst-Sigfried Paul Grasser obtained his PhD in Applied in Applied Mathematics in 1965 from University of South Africa under Prof. Hanno Rund. His PhD thesis was titled “Hamilton-Jacobi Theory for Parameter-Invariant Problems of the Second Order in the Calculus of Variations”. He was Professor of Mathematics at UNISA and Chair of the Mathematics Department, active on the Council of SAMS for many years until his final illness, and one of the driving forces behind QM since its inception.
Professor Roelof Vorster received a B.Sc. from the University of Pretoria, South Africa in 1962 and started his career with a big bang as an explosives chemist at the world's largest dynamite factory. Realizing that mathematics is his first love, he joined the staff of the distance teaching University of South Africa (UNISA) where he obtained a Ph.D. in topology and category theory in 1972, and where he has been Chair of the Mathematics Department from 1990 to 1998. It was during a visit to UNISA by Norrie Everitt and Lance Littlejohn in 1990 that the former delivered a fascinating talk that aroused great interest in the work of HJS Smith and the Fermat Two Squares Theorem.
Professor Ian William Alderton obtained his PhD from the University South Africa in 1986. Prof. Alderton’s academic career at Unisa spans from being the Lecturer from 1982 to 1987, senior lecturer from 1987 to 1991, associate professor of mathematics from 1992 to1999, professor of mathematics since 2000, and the Chair of the Department mathematical Sciences from 1999 to 2003.
Professor Sergio Salbany obtained his PhD in 1970 from the University of Cape Town. His research work was demanding and the output impressive in the given context. Sergio came to Unisa in November 1997 and he devoted his time to teaching, administration and research. The Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, and Astronomy of Unisa was a strongly thriving research-oriented at the time, where he actively stimulated work in the areas of Topology, Category Theory, Algebra and Logic. About ten of his last publications on the list below were produced at Unisa. He was appointed as Professor of Mathematics at the Unisa in November 1997. He was the Chair of the Mathematics department in 2003 and from January 2004 he was seconded to the “deanery” as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Science.
Professor William Mphepheng William Lesame obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics specializing in Theoretical Cosmology obtaine1998 from University of Cape Town. He was the Chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Unisa from 2004 to 2009,
Key Research & Academic Contributions His research primarily focused on Einstein's field equations, general relativity, and cosmological models.
He worked on Fluid and Dust Universes and has published significant work investigating irrotational dust solutions and fluid spacetimes within general relativity. Specifically his work focused on theoretical modeling and analysing the properties, integrability conditions, and behavior of the electric and magnetic parts of the Weyl curvature tensor. His work also focused on the "Silent" Cosmological Models which contributed to the mathematical consistency of "silent universes," which model specific gravitational and structural phenomena in the universe without the presence of gravitational radiation.
He obtained a PhD in Pure Mathematics, specializing in topological structures in 2004 from University of South Africa).
He obtained a PhD in Pure Mathematics specializing in Point-free Topology in 2004 from University of Cape Town.
She obtained a PhD in Pure Mathematics specializing in Analysis n 2004 from the University of Witwatersrand.
He obtained a PhD in Applied Mathematics specializing in Numerical Analysis in 1998 from Memorial University, Newfoundland and Labrado, Canada.
He obtained a PhD in Applied Mathematics specializing in Computational Relativity, Relativistic Astrophysics, Cosmology in 2013 from University of South Africa.
Last modified: 2026/09/07