Verdiana Grace Masanja ( Kashaga, born October 12, 1954) is a Tanzanian mathematician specializing in

fluid dynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) an ...

. She is the first Tanzanian woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics.

Education

Masanja was born in

Bukoba Bukoba is a city with a population of 128,796 (2012 census), situated in the north west of Tanzania on the south western shores of Lake Victoria. It is the capital of the Kagera region, and the administrative seat for Bukoba Urban District. T ...

, at the time part of the

United Nations trust territory United Nations trust territories were the successors of the remaining League of Nations mandates and came into being when the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946. All of the trust territories were administered through the United Natio ...

Tanganyika Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Main ...

. She was a student at the Jangwani Girls Secondary School in

Dar es Salaam Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...

and then at the

University of Dar es Salaam The University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) is a public university in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was established in 1961 as an affiliate college of the University of London. The university became an affiliate of the University of East Africa (UEA) in 1 ...

, completing a degree in mathematics and physics in 1976 and a master's degree in 1981. Her master's thesis was ''Effect of Injection on Developing Laminar Flow of Reiner–Philippoff Fluids in a Circular Pipe''. She earned a second master's degree in physics and completed her doctorate in fluid dynamics at echnische Universität Berlin. Her dissertation, ''A Numerical Study of a Reiner–Rivlin Fluid in an Axi-Symmetrical Circular Pipe'', was jointly supervised by Wolfgang Muschik and Gerd Brunk.

Career

Already, while a master's student, Masanja had become a lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, and on her return from Germany she became a professor there, and remained on the university's faculty until 2010. In 2006 she began teaching as well at the

National University of Rwanda The National University of Rwanda (NUR; rw, Kaminuza nkuru y’u Rwanda, french: Université nationale du Rwanda, UNR) was the largest university in Rwanda. It was located at in the city of Butare and was established in 1963 by the government ...

, and in 2007 became a professor there, as well as being appointed as the university's director of research, and as deputy vice chancellor and senior advisor at the University of Kibungo in Rwanda. In 2018 she returned to Tanzania as a professor of applied and computational mathematics at the

Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) is a public institution in northern Tanzania based in Arusha City. Institution The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Arusha (NM-AIST Arusha) i ...

Arusha Arusha City is a Tanzanian city and the regional capital of the Arusha Region, with a population of 416,442 plus 323,198 in the surrounding Arusha District Council (2012 census). Located below Mount Meru on the eastern edge of the eastern bran ...

. Masanja has served as vice president for Eastern Africa of the

African Mathematical Union The African Mathematical Union or Union Mathematique Africaine is an African organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Africa. It was founded in 1976 in Rabat, Morocco, during the first Pan-African Congress of Mathematicians wi ...

, chaired the African Mathematical Union Commission on Women in Mathematics in Africa and the Tanzania Education Network, and has served as National Coordinator for Female Education in Mathematics in Africa.

Research

She has also published on the education and participation of women in science. Masanja is editor-in-chief of the ''Rwanda Journal''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Masanja, Verdiana 1954 births Living people Tanzanian mathematicians Jangwani Girls Secondary School alumni University of Dar es Salaam alumni Technische Universität Berlin alumni Academic staff of the University of Dar es Salaam Academic staff of the National University of Rwanda Tanzanian expatriates in Rwanda Tanzanian expatriates in Germany 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century mathematicians