Prof Gerrit Stols has been appointed as the new academic Head of the Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education as from 1 January 2016.

Prof Stols enjoys international recognition for his work in Mathematics Education and has received a C2 rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF). He has supervised more than a dozen postgraduate students to completion and has obtained numerous grants for his research in the use of technology in Mathematics education.  

Prof Stols, who received his professorate on 1 January 2014, has generated more than 24 articles and book chapters in highly renowned publications in the field. His research intends to bridge the gap between research and practice, and involves a systematic enquiry about the conditions under which mathematics teachers use technology for instruction. Prof Stols did a comprehensive literature study in order to understand the factors that influence the decision by mathematics teachers to use technology in the classroom, and presented these results at conferences. The research he conducts has had direct benefit for teachers in South Africa, Japan and the United States of America.

He has lectured on several continents on his work in Mathematics and specifically Geometry and has been invited to the University of Alberta, University of Georgia, Northeast Normal University, Naruto University, Fordham University and the University of Utrecht.  

He is currently on a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Great Falls, Montana, in the USA.

Prof Stols’s appointment as Head of Department, will lay the foundations for the Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education to increase its role as a national leading department in these fields of education. It will also further increase international opportunities for researchers and students in the Department.