- Chris Brink
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Chris Brink is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.[1] From 2002-2007 he was the Vice-chancellor of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Before his involvement with Stellenbosch University, he was Pro Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Wollongong in Australia (1999–2001). Before that, he was Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town, where he also headed a research unit called the Laboratory for Formal Aspects of Computer Science.
During the transition period from apartheid in South Africa, he served as Coordinator of Strategic Planning at the University of Cape Town. Before that, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University, where he worked on a 5-year research programme known as the Automated Reasoning Project.
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Biographical details
Chris Brink was born and grew up in a small rural town at the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert. At the age of 18 he moved to Johannesburg, where he gained a first degree in maths and computer science. He continued his postgraduate study in mathematics and philosophy at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, before being awarded a prestigious scholarship to Cambridge, where he completed a PhD in Algebraic logic in 1978.
His career since then has divided between academic and management positions in South Africa and Australia, with frequent contacts in Britain and Europe. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Information Science Research of the Australian National University in the late 1980s, before becoming Professor and Head of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town. In the mid-1990s he was involved in the restructuring of the University of Cape Town, where he served as Coordinator of Strategic Planning, and oversaw the production of the institution's strategic planning framework and mission statement.
In 1992 he was awarded an interdisciplinary DPhil by the University of Johannesburg, and by the late 1990s he was ranked as one of South Africa’s leading scientists by the national Foundation for Research Development.
In 1998, he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Wollongong in Australia, where he restructured the University's activities in research, innovation and commercialisation. Following the decline of the steel industry, the University was key to the rebirth of Wollongong as a knowledge-based city. Professor Brink served as Board member of several organisations, including a company in high performance computing at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, and the Illawarra Regional Development Board.
He was appointed Rector and Vice-Chancellor of Stellenbosch University in South Africa in 2002, which he has led through a transformation agenda while at the same time increasing its research and academic profile nationally and internationally.
Professor Brink has an international profile as a leader of research. He is a logician with a strong commitment to interdisciplinary work who has published widely in the fields of mathematics, logic, philosophy and computer science. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, a former President of the South African Mathematical Society, a Founder Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
He is married with three children; two daughters aged 22 and 8, and a 6 year old son.
Contributions to mathematics
Brink pioneered the study of Boolean modules over relation algebras. Boolean modules together with relation algebras provide a modern formalization of Peirce's logic of relatives in terms of universal algebra.
External links
References
- ^ "Newcastle University names next Vice-Chancellor". Newcastle University. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/content.phtml?ref=1152029749. Retrieved 2009-03-10.
Categories:- South African mathematicians
- South African academics
- South African educators
- University of Cape Town academics
- Living people
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