Professor Jean Lubuma is a Distinguished Professor at the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, University of the Witwatersrand. He was an Emeritus Professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He was Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences from 2015 to 2019, Founding holder of the DST/NRF SARChI Chair in Mathematical Models and Methods in Bioengineering and Biosciences from 2013 to 2015, and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics from 2004 to 2013. His research interests are on ordinary and partial differential equations and integral equations. He focuses on the quantitative, qualitative, and numerical analysis of differential equations models that arise in engineering, science, and technology. This includes life science, where he does the modelling of natural processes, specifically the transmission of human infectious diseases. The theoretical setting includes function spaces and distributions theory. He specializes in constructing reliable finite difference, finite element, and boundary element methods. He has published widely in several prestigious journals and has attended several major conferences on topics relating to his field. He has made significant contributions to the theory of nonstandard finite difference schemes, and to the design of reliable numerical schemes for models that arise in applications. He has also contributed to making science work in Africa. He has trained several postgraduate students, is involved in several regional research programmes, and established the first-ever South African student chapter of the prestigious Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He renders a vital service to the scientific community through his extensive involvement as associate editor and referees for several journals. Awards and recognitions received by Prof Lubuma include A-rated researcher by the National Research Foundation from January 2020, Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, Sign of Honour of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, South African Mathematical Society Award for Research Distinction (2011).
