Briefs

It is with great sadness that the UCT community notes the passing of Ian Sims CBE on 24 March 2014 in New Zealand, after a long illness. Ian Sims was chair of Council (1991 to 1998) at a time of transitions: from the Vice-Chancellorship of Stuart Saunders to that of Mamphela Ramphele; from the old to the new South Africa in 1994; to a new Council structure, following an extensive consultative process involving the then-University Transformation Forum; the transition to a new faculty structure (ten faculties becoming six, and the addition of the Centre for Higher Education Development); and financial devolution to faculties. He took over at a time when UCT had just embarked upon two significant capital projects: the move of the GSB to the waterfront campus, and the acquisition of the Forest Hills complex. His extensive experience and his relaxed style enabled him to ensure that the Council was able to deal effectively with the challenges associated with these transitions.

George Smith, a senior lecturer in the Department of Geological Science, was selected by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) to give lectures around Africa and the Middle East. An international scientific society based in the US and a dominant international professional society for applied geophysics, SEG chooses one honorary lecturer per continent in recognition of that person's expertise as a geophysicist and a speaker. Smith recently completed the lecture series through Africa and the Middle East, which saw him presenting 22 lectures in 13 countries. His topic - 'Amplitude Variation with Offset in Exploration and Production' - is about geophysical (seismology) interpretation technology used principally in the upstream oil and gas industry.