Celebrating the academic excellence of Professor Kevin Duffy, Director of the Institute for Systems Science at DUT, was the aim of the University’s first inaugural lecture which took place at the DUT Hotel School Conference Centre, DUT Ritson Campus on Wednesday (12 March 2014).
Various academics and staff members of the University including Dr Lavern Samuels; International Education and Partnerships Director, Nicole Muller; Technology Applications Specialist in the Office of the DVC: TIP, Prof Ahmed Bawa Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Sibusiso Moyo; Research and Postgraduate Support Directorate Director and Dr Brian Pearce; Associate Professor in the Drama and Production Studies Department all gathered at the inaugural lecture as a university community to commemorate the ascension of Prof Duffy to the position of full professor.
Titled: Science: seeking mysteries and magic in nature, Prof Duffy devoted his inaugural lecture explaining why he chose to become a scientist. He also talked about how nature is both beautiful and mysterious, using examples from his own findings as a scientist to show an excitement for the subject.
“I see myself primarily as a scientist and there’s quite a huge debate, especially in the philosophy circles, about what is science. I think for me, it’s matching models. To give you all an example is how did you all get here to this lecture? All of you have some kind of model, it matches reality, so my lecture is really to look at ways to understand reality,” he said.
Prof Duffy spoke about his usage of dynamic models to understand system processes in various fields of research in ecology, agriculture, biophysics, engineering, musical rhythm and literature. He spoke about the ‘brainless’ bacterium Pseudomonas putida which lives around plants, and which is the first patented organism in the world. He spoke of how the bacterium moves; which is basically tumbling in one direction and goes backwards faster, explaining that these events of tumbling are random and independent and match the probability law.
Prof Duffy than explained his research about intelligent animals such as elephants and of other research which has evolved with the recurring theme of his interest in the inter-connection between the apparently random and not so random patterns in nature.
“What thinks a lot is the elephant. We put satellite collars on elephants at Pongola Game Reserve in Zululand which collects GPS positions as often as we can without stressing out the elephants. As technology got better and better, we got more data.”
“The elephants did not ‘turn’ like the bacteria . They forage and they stop and when they take off again, they mainly go forward. It turns out that many animals do this… such as dolphins and insects,” he said.
Over the last 10 years, Prof Duffy has acquired and managed over R20 million for large research projects such as developing decision support simulation tools for increasing agricultural production and food security in Africa.
Also, speaking at the event, Prof Bawa said it was the first time two “Greytown boys” were sharing the platform together for such an event. “Inaugural lectures are a form of recognition and are an important milestone in the life of an academic. We must depend on our professor to be the kernel of this process to generate a culture of learning and a culture of research; to gather around them bright and outstanding postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows and to lead the way in publishing research of the highest quality in high impact factor journals,” he said.
– Waheeda Peters
Pictured: Prof Kevin Duffy explains his research about elephant patterns at his inaugural lecture.
