African Success Stories

Two former ICTP Associates have been appointed recently to high-level political and academic posts in their home countries.

Mary Teuw Niane, Rector of Université Gaston Berger in St. Louis, Senegal, was appointed Minister of Higher Education at the end of October. Niane was an ICTP Senior Associate from 2000 to 2007, and has attended training activities at ICTP since 1999. He was last at ICTP in 2006 as a lecturer in the School in Nonlinear Differential Equations. He earned his doctorate in 1990 at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal.

Stanislas Ouaro, professor of mathematics, was appointed President of Université Ouaga II, in Gonse, Burkina Faso. Ouaro was an ICTP Junior Associate from 2003 to 2010. He obtained his PhD at Université de Ouagadougou in 2001. He has visited ICTP since 1999 as a participant in training activities both in mathematics and climate modelling. He has also spent research periods with ICTP's Mathematics section, including in 2012.

The Associateship Scheme, one of ICTP's oldest programmes, provides support for active scientists from developing countries to maintain long-term, formal contact with the Centre.

The programme supports the visits of scientists to ICTP, exposing them to the most modern aspects of their scientific fields. In return, the Associates are expected to play a major role in building their scientific communities, enhancing physics and mathematics education at all levels, and planning research projects related to the specific needs of their home regions.