Professor Dr. Marc Diener and Professor Dr. Francine Diener from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France visited the Department of Mathematics, CIIT Islamabad, from August 19th to 25th, 2013. Both professors are coordinators of EMMA (Erasmus Mundus Mobility in Asia), of which COMSATS is also a member. This is their third visit to CIIT Islamabad.
A one semester exchange program under EMMA was discussed, in a meeting with the International Office. To prepare students for this exchange program, the establishment of a joint course between CIIT and the University of Nice was also proposed. This course will be offered to students of Bio-Informatics, and will be designed along the lines of an existing course at the University of Nice.
Professor Marc Diener delivered a seminar on the “Interest rate in the random Yunus equation”. Professor Francine Diener delivered a seminar on “How to fit a system of Differential Equations to Given Measures with Bayesian Method”. They also met with MS/PhD students in the department and discussed various research problems.
The implementation of a Mathematical Finance program in CIIT Islamabad was also discussed. It was decided that a running lecture by Professor Dr. Marc Diener at Nice during the second semester (February-May 2014) will be recorded in live and be accessible online by the students and faculty members who will be interested to attend in Islamabad.
The possibility of co-supervision (joint supervision) of doctoral students in mathematical finance was also brought up. For this, a scholar will be required to register as a PhD student at CIIT Islamabad. He/She will then apply for 10 months scholarship, to begin a doctorate in this field under the co-supervision of professors of CIIT and Nice.
Dr. Marc Diener and Dr. Francine Diener also visited M. Gilles Ange at the French Embassy in Pakistan, who advised setting up a Partnership Huber Curien between both Universities (PHCs are programs of excellence, sponsored by the French Ministry of Higher Education, which intend to enhance high level scientific cooperation between Pakistani and French Institutions).
The Department of Mathematics and the international office of CIIT extended full cooperation to the professors, and this visit was quite productive.