Diploma Success

Since its inception in 1991, ICTP's Postgraduate Diploma Programme has provided students from developing countries with a solid foundation to pursue research careers in physics and mathematics. A recent example is Soheyla Feyzbakhsh, a Diploma student in mathematics who has just been accepted to the School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh.

Mathematics has not always been the main focus of Feyzbakhsh's academic pursuits; she studied both electrical engineering and mathematics in Iran.  But things changed after her mathematics professor encouraged her to enrol in more mathematics courses to take part in an international mathematics competition. Not only did Feyzbakhsh do very well at the competition, but also she discovered that mathematics was the subject she wanted to follow. "I think it was while sitting through a lecture on algebraic topology that I was convinced of wanting to pursue mathematics," she says.

Feyzbakhsh explains that being enrolled in ICTP's Postgraduate Diploma Programme has helped her tremendously because the professors  are top researchers and have an excellent rapport with the students. "I really like the environment here; it is peaceful for studying, the professors are excellent, and I can use the ICTP library where I have access to any book I need," she says.

"In a way, we can say that Feyzbakhsh is a poster child for ICTP's Postgraduate Diploma Programme," says Fernando Villegas, Head of ICTP's Mathematics section. "It helped her reach the level required to pursue research in a very good university." Adriana Sofer, a scientific collaborator in the Mathematics section who teaches the Diploma course in elementary number theory at ICTP, agrees and says that ICTP gives focused and determined students like Feyzbakhsh access to top universities.

Feyzbakhsh is expected to graduate with a Postgraduate Diploma in September 2014, and will start her PhD work on algebraic geometry with Arend Bayer, University of Edinburgh.