South Africa has a huge shortage of postgraduate statisticians, mathematicians and physicists. As a result, our universities do not have enough academics and researchers in these fields because many of the postgraduates are snapped up by industry.
But there are initiatives addressing this, and one of the key developments is the national expansion of the annual internship led by the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) for final year and postgraduate students, with an emphasis on those from historically disadvantaged universities.
For the past 16 years the internship has been led by Stellenbosch University with a handful of participating universities. It proved its worth and in September 2023 the department of science and innovation and the National Research Foundation approved the development of a national NITheCS consortium, led by Stellenbosch University with 25 South African universities forming five nodes.
“Now that we have a national mandate, our aim is to exponentially increase the number of mathematically, analytically and numerically skilled individuals in South Africa in both higher education and industry to advance the knowledge-based economy,” says Professor Francesco Petruccione, the director of NITheCS at Stellenbosch University.
“It will strengthen the research capacity needed to solve the major challenges we are facing, including energy, water, health, food security, climate change and growing the economy. It will increase our global competitiveness in science and technology, and in the rapid development of artificial intelligence,” Petruccione says.
Doctoral student at the University of Cape Town, Aluwani Guga, participated in the internship after completing his Honours in Physics at the University of Venda in Limpopo.
“The reason I’m currently doing my doctorate in physics is because of the NITheCS internship,” he says, “It shaped my understanding of theoretical and computational physics and helped me to grasp complex concepts — from the behaviour of subatomic particles to the vastness of the cosmos. During the internship I realised how much I wanted to be a nano-materials researcher,” says Guga who aims to complete his doctorate in December 2024.
He did his internship at Nelson Mandela University in December 2018, supervised by Professor Azwinndini Muronga and Dr Mohammed Younus, both theoretical physicists. Muronga is the executive dean of the Faculty of Science and he annually hosts the largest number of interns, currently about 35.
Muronga says the internship also helps to advance postgraduates to the level required to participate in South African-based international science programmes such as at the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), SA-CERN and iThemba LABS, and in programmes with their international partners such as the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy.
“We need to make sure that we have a strong and growing pipeline of South African scientists contributing to these programmes and applying themselves to future discoveries,” he says.
The internship includes eight themes: theoretical physics, mathematics, statistics, astronomy and astrophysics, data sciences, quantitative finance, bioinformatics and quantitative biology, earth systems and climate change modelling.
“The internship widened my horizons and provided the doorway for me to pursue my PhD at Wits,” says Dr Thuthukile Khumalo who did her BSc, honours and master’s in chemistry and physics at the University of Zululand. She attended the internship during her master’s and graduated with her doctorate in experimental nuclear physics from the University of the Witwatersrand in April 2024. “I want to be an academic as I have a passion for teaching and research,” she says.
Keletso Monareng participated in the internship at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Pretoria, supervised by Dr David Tshwane, a senior researcher in computational science at the CSIR.
Monareng says: “I am a brilliant mind pursuing my PhD in physics at the University of Limpopo, applying machine learning techniques to design and discover new materials. This is a cutting-edge application of artificial intelligence that has the potential to revolutionise the way we predict materials properties and develop new and functional materials.” She has a BSc in physics and chemistry, honours in physics and Master Science from the University of Limpopo.
“We are all assigned a research project as part of the internship and it’s a great way to keep abreast of the latest advancements, in my case in materials science, which is super important in such a rapidly evolving field.”
Intern Lutho Booi did his BSc at the University of the Western Cape, his honours in astrophysics at the University of Cape Town and is now doing his master’s in astrophysics and space science.
“During my internship at Nelson Mandela University, I learnt that with computational skills I can move into other fields like finance; it opened my mind to many options or to stay with astrophysics and take it much further at facilities like the SKA, which will offer increasing opportunities for astrophysicists and data analysts.
“I have decided astrophysics is my path because I am so interested in the universe and I want to focus on transient astronomy and supernovae explosions or binary systems. Scientifically I think I can make a huge difference to the field in South Africa and globally.”
His interest in the universe started with debates about whether God exists. “Researching astrophysics and space science, I learnt so much about the universe and started exploring how we came to be living on Earth, and about life and death at the universal scale,” he says. “I want to understand how the universe works and what happened after the Big Bang. I can say there is some big creative force and we can prove it scientifically but I am still learning and seeking answers to all these questions.”
Muronga says the most important aspect of the programme is it teaches the interns to be independent thinkers and problem-solvers. “It’s a very tough learning curve for them and they experience many frustrations and trials but it prepares them for the highest levels of research and to succeed in the world of work.
“I am motivated by what we can achieve through NITheCS as I know where many of our students, postgraduates and researchers come from. I know the difficulties they face.”
He explains that when he did his master’s at the University of Cape Town he had no computational skills as these were not available at the University of Venda when he did his undergraduate and honours degree there.
“When I went to the University of Cape Town to do my master’s and PhD, I had to teach myself computational skills. All these years later, we still get students attending the internship without programming skills and we have to teach them these. It is unacceptable. Computational and data science languages should all be taught in every university curriculum. Many of the students from historically disadvantaged universities have also not been exposed to current research trends. This should not be the case.”
Intern Thapelo Ntobeng recently graduated with his MSc in physics at the University of Limpopo. “I did the internships at the University of KwaZulu-Natal because I wanted to push beyond my comfort zone, and to meet and exchange ideas with other people in my field of theoretical and computational condensed matter and materials physics.
“Through the internship I have gained essential computing experience.I learnt so much from my supervisor, Dr Aniekan Ukpong, a senior lecturer in physics, and researcher in theoretical and computational condensed matter and materials physics. This helped to determine my career path which is to be a researcher in materials physics.”
Intern Simamkele Kalipa is doing her honours in applied mathematics at Nelson Mandela University. She did her BSc at the same university.
“My research project focus is on machine learning for climate dataset analysis, and during the internship I learnt to do data analysis at a high level. It also helped me to clarify which career path I wish to pursue which is to be a computational mathematician. I want to create models and simulations of real world situations, such as to determine water flow which is essential in urban infrastructure.”
Petruccione says: “There are many inspiring stories about how the NITheCS internships have propelled the academic journeys and careers of young scientists. With the national NITheCS consortium, we are aiming to significantly increase this. We need to make sure that we have a strong and growing pipeline of young data and basic scientists applying themselves to research and innovation that advances the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding of our world and universe, and that pushes the frontiers of science and technology for the benefit of society.”