Qualify Teaching Assistants

Through the Master Degree Program in Applied Mathematics initiated in 1983, followed by providing opportunities for studying for PhDs abroad at top universities.

The area of Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems went specially close to current research topics with Jack Hale coming to lecture the 2nd course in Ordinary Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems, with emphasis on bifurcation and structural stability, following the preparation by the 1st course in the subject, lectured by Luis Magalhães, who provided to the students the lecture notes Introdução à Teoria Qualitativa de Equações Diferenciais Ordinárias, Luis T. Magalhães, Departamento de Matemática, IST. 1984. This was the most advanced textbook on the subject ever provided in Portugal. Manuel Ricou lectured the two semester courses on Partial Differential Equations. These were challenging hands-on courses, very different from the up to then traditional ellegant presentations of mature theory, and they contributed decisively for the qualification of several Teaching Assistants and for their choice of topics for further studies.

This Master Degree Program was a two years program offered every other year. After the 3rd edition, by 1990, the majority of the IST Mathematics Department Professors with PhD degrees argued that the Department was already very developed and should support that the Teaching Assistant doctor degrees be obtained at the IST under supervision of Professores of the IST Mathematics Department, instead of supporting them to obtain doctoral degrees abroad. This parochial perspective was defeated with the frontal argument that such an superiority idea would require objective evidence, in particular by the international attraction of top students, what was impossible to contradict even if coming from a very small minority. As a consequence, several of the Department Teaching Assistants could be supported by the Mathematics Department to study for doctor degrees at top international universities, what was critical to the future quality of the Department.

A related unfortunate, but unavoidable, consequence was a bipolarization in the Department: the Teaching Assistants wishing to have an international career and to obtain their doctoral degrees abroad came close to our Reserach Group and those wishing or, for private reaasons, having to remain in Portugal came close to the other Professors, leading to a visible unbalance.