Master’s in Mathematical Sciences – Climate Science Stream

Overview

In many parts of the world, changes in climatic variables, including increases in temperature and declines in precipitation are already having detrimental impacts on economies, food security, health, energy and biodiversity, contributing to temperature rises with increasingly perilous consequences for humanity.

International organisations like the UN have recognised that a sustainable societal response to these challenges requires the collective participation of both men and women. However, women have historically had fewer opportunities than men to play significant roles in society’s quest for solutions to climate change, even though in many parts of the world, women’s livelihoods are more dependent on climate-sensitive activities, making them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In 2017, AIMS signed a partnership with the Canadian government through its International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for the Mathematical Science for Climate Resilience (MS4CR) program. The MS4CR program was designed to increase the contribution of African mathematical scientists to finding solutions to climate change-related challenges in Africa through training, internships and research.

The Curriculum

The curriculum runs over three semesters: 

• The required skills phase of the AIMS course builds a standard core set of problem-solving skills such as estimation, computation, approximation, modelling, data analysis and statistics. 
• The elective review phase allows students to apply these skills in some of the most exciting areas of science. In the case of the climate science stream, elective courses will reflect this specialization. 
• In the final phase of the AIMS course students do a research project and write a scientific report under the supervision of an expert researcher on a topic of their choice. Research initiated in these projects often develops into further postgraduate research work after AIMS.