Last Friday, October 22, in one of the first official activities to be carried out in person after the COVID 19 pandemic, the Graduate School of the Universidad de Concepción, UdeC, held at the Casa del Arte a new edition of the traditional Doctoral Medal Awarding Ceremony, honoring 82 professionals, who obtained the highest academic degree in the various doctoral programs, between September 2020 and August 2021. 

One of the 28 PhD programs currently available at UdeC is the PhD Program in Applied Sciences with a minor in Mathematical Engineering, taught by the Department of Mathematical Engineering of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics. 

This program, created in March 1995 and conceived as an interdisciplinary program -with research lines in Numerical Analysis of Partial Differential Equations, Optimization, Discrete Mathematics and Stochastic Analysis- brings together all active in research academicians at the DIM. 

Since its foundation in 2009, the Center for Research in Mathematical Engineering, CI²MA, has hosted the activities of the Program in its facilities, offering office spaces and seminar rooms to students. The quality of the PhD program is currently certified for a period of seven years by the National Accreditation Commission, CNA-Chile. Most of the graduates of this program are working as academicians in Chilean or foreign universities. 

The honorees of the Program for this year were the Colombian Rafael Ordóñez Cardales and the Salvadoran Willian Miranda Tobar. “In my thesis, we developed a mathematical and numerical analysis of models that describe certain phenomena in Biology and Biomedicine”, explains Willian, “which include generalized bioconvection and the registration of deformable images. The methods developed in the thesis have motivated several projects in process and in the future, aimed at extending and generalizing the results obtained for the problems studied. The idea is to continue conducting research in the area of Numerical Analysis”. 

Regarding the training received in the UdeC Doctorate and how it has prepared him to face new challenges, Willian highlighted that “the program provides the appropriate tools and spaces to carry out high-quality research, since training is received from researchers recognized and provides the resources for their students to train as researchers”. 

“Carrying out my doctoral studies at CI²MA”, Willian emphasized, “has been a very enriching experience, it requires a lot of dedication and effort, but the training and resources received allowed me to grow as a researcher”. 

The Director (s) of the Doctorate Program, Dr. Rodolfo Rodríguez Alonso highlights the Latin American character of the program. “On the one hand, this year we had the first graduate from a new country: Willian Miranda, from El Salvador. With this thesis, the program has already graduated from 10 Latin American countries”, he affirms. 

“On the other hand”, emphasizes Dr. Rodríguez, “the other graduate, Rafael Ordoñez, is the tenth Colombian student to obtain the doctorate in our program, with Colombia being the country, without counting Chile, of course, with more graduates. This allowed us to establish a solid and lasting scientific relationship with applied mathematicians from Colombia, several of them former students of our program”. 

“It is a great pleasure to see two graduates of the doctoral program that we host receive their respective doctoral medals. This shows, once again, the importance of the formation of advanced human capital for the Center's work. Well, for the graduates and their respective tutors, a cordial greeting of congratulations”, said the Director of CI²MA, Dr. Rodolfo Araya Durán. 

Graduates of the Doctorate Program in Applied Sciences with a major in Mathematical Engineering from the UdeC total 66, since the first of them graduated in 2000: the Peruvian Luis Collante Santisteban, who developed the thesis entitled Phenomenological Modeling of Flow in Vortex: Application to Hydrocyclones, directed by Dr. Fernando Concha.