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News 2009
Education award
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On World Teacher's Day Dr Annette Worthy and Dr Mark Nelson were presented with peer recognition awards by the Illawarra/South Coast Regional Group of the Australian College of Educators. |
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Annette was cited for "her guidance, support and understanding for all teachers and students in the BMathEd program". Mark was cited for "his outstanding ability to make Mathematics real and relevant for the students he teaches". [Oct 09] | ||
New Grants
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Prof Iain Raeburn (with Dr Marcel Laca of Univ. of Victoria, Canada) has been awarded an ARC Discovery grant for a project entitled "Structure and states of operator-algebraic dynamical systems" from 2010-2012. This project is in the general area of functional analysis, and more specifically operator theory, an area in which the University of Wollongong has an active research group and a strong international reputation. The investigators will study dynamical systems arising in combinatorial and number-theoretic situations, where the analogue of the "dynamics'' is provided by an action of the real line on an operator algebra. | |
Prof Song-Ping Zhu is part of a team that was awarded an ARC Linkage grant with industry partner Strata Control Technology Pty Ltd for a project entitled "Study of Coupled Water-Gas-Sediment (three-phase) Flows through Jointed and Stratified Rock" 2010-2012. "Coupled Water-Gas-Sediment Flows through Rock Joints" project outcomes are expected to surpass the current knowledge on ground/slope stability and water inundation, enhance engineering solutions of the associated problems and provide vital improvements to public safety. [Oct 09] |
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New President for IASS
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Prof Ray Chambers has been elected president of the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS). The IASS is the top international professional body for people working in sample surveys and censuses. It has strong membership from academic statisticians and statisticians working in government and industry. It also takes a special interest in raising the profile of survey methods in developing countries. [June 09] |
Tibra Capital Scholarships
Interviews for the Tibra Work Integrated Learning Scholarships were held recently, and due to the outstanding quality of the candidates Tibra Capital has generously agreed to offer seven awards this year, three above the usual number of scholarships!
These scholarships are open to full time mathematics degree students, and involve invaluable work experience with Tibra Capital over the summer vacation, plus $15,000.
In the midst of the financial crisis this sends a very strong message about the worth and marketability of UOW Maths degrees. Our thanks to Tibra Capital for their support and generosity. [May 09].
Scholarship to Harvard
A few weeks ago we received the exciting news that current School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics student, Richard White, has been accepted into Harvard University's Department of Biostatistics. This is one of the world's great statistical groups and is located in a major epicentre of medical and public health research in Boston. In addition, Richard will have full funding from a prestigious Knox Fellowship.
Richard grew up in Gerringong and is in the final semester of his BMath(Adv) degree, with honours in Statistics. He will commence study at Harvard in August. Our congratulations and best wishes to Richard! [more details, Apr 09] |
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OCTAL award for Loftus team
Since the implementation of the Loftus BMathEd program in 2002, it has been served by an exclusive interdisciplinary team comprised of educationists, mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists and a learning development lecturer, who have recently being recognised by the Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning (OCTAL).
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The team's strong coherent purpose is to strive to inspire students through their passion for their discipline and importantly thirst for learning and knowledge, along with learning experiences and real world applications whilst promoting and using technologies where needed. |
A group of students participating in class at Loftus |
The strategies devised and implemented across the BMathEd program have specifically targeted at developing collaborative, yet independent and reflective learners, who will become tomorrow’s teachers who teach the next generation of discipline experts.
Success and a tradition has been set with a BMathEd student being awarded a BMath(Hons) First Class Honours from UOW’s main campus in 2008.
The winning Loftus Maths Education Team is comprised of:
- Dr Annette Worthy (Leader), School of Mathematics & Applied Statistics, Faculty of Informatics
- Faculty of Education: Dr Gwyn Brickell, Mr Kevin Gosbell, Dr Jennifer Rowley
- Faculty of Informatics: A/Prof Greg Doherty, Dr Luke McAven, Dr Maureen Morris, Mr Paul Wakenshaw
- Development Lecturer: Joanne Dearlove.
[Apr 09]
News 2008
JB Douglas Postgraduate Award
Damian Collins, a Ph.D. student within the School, was recently awarded equal first prize in the J.B. Douglas Postgraduate Awards. Each year, the NSW Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia conducts a competition for these Awards, for which the various University Departments in NSW that teach Statistics or Econometrics may each nominate one postgraduate student. The nominees make a presentation on the work in their theses, and are judged on the content, presentation, etc. of their talks.
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Damian’s presentation was entitled “Approximate likelihood approaches for estimation in generalized linear mixed models”. He compared various methods that statistical packages use to solve a very important computational problem. Damian’s work will be of considerable benefit to the developers of such products, including the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI), for which Damian works. Damian’s thesis was supervised by Ken Russell, with very significant contributions from Professors Brian Cullis (NSW DPI) and Robin Thompson (Rothamsted Experimental Station, UK). |
In the photo, Damian (on the right) is receiving his Award from Dr Eric Beh, President of the NSW Branch (and himself the holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Wollongong) [Nov 08] | |
ARC Discovery Grant Success
The School is proud to congratulate the following staff on their recent ARC Discovery grant awards, for projects to commence in 2009:
- Prof Jim Hill and Dr Barry Cox, "Mathematical and mechanical models in nano-engineering and nano-medicine" 4 years, funding: $610,000 and
- Dr Aidan Sims, "Co-universal operator algebras" 3 years, funding $186,000.
More detail about these projects is available from the Research Office page.
Aidan Sims was also successful with another external ARC discovery grant submitted through UNSW as was A/Prof Jacqui Ramagge with University of Newcastle. [Oct 08]
New staff appointments
It was recently announced that Dr Natalie Thamwattana and Dr Barry Cox, researchers in the area of Nanomechanics, have both accepted offers of continuing appointments within SMAS. Thanks to the Dean, Prof. Joe Chicharo, the DVC-R, Prof. Judy Raper and the VC, Prof. Gerard Sutton, who have made these appointments possible, there is now a bright long-term future for the Nanomechanics group. [Oct 08] |
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Student's "t" party
Many researchers will know of, and use, the Student t-test in their research.
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of the paper that brought this test into existence, and to mark the 71st anniversary of the death of "Student" (a pseudonym used by William Sealy Gosset), staff and research students were invited to a "t" party on Thursday, 16th October. Gosset's statistical work was motivated by his employment as a brewer (eventually Master Brewer) for Guinness.
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The proceedings included a brief presentation on Gosset, his life, the family of t distributions and the t- test. Guests enjoyed (Student's) Tea and Guinness cake. Opposite is a photograph of the Guinness brewery in Dublin, taken by Ken Russell during a conference [Oct 08]. |
Tibra Capital prizes and scholarships
Tibra Capital have signed a four year scholarship support arrangement with UOW worth $75,000 a year.
The details are two 1st year scholarships worth $7K each and four Work Integrated Learning Scholarships (WILS) worth $15K each to be offered every year.
The scholarships are open to all students doing Mathematics degrees and the first round of WILS scholarships will be advertised shortly. The successful students will do 12 weeks work experience at Tibra Capital, over the summer break.
It is a fantastic opportunity for maths students to gain valuable work experience (and start careers) in the growing field of Mathematical Finance.
Also, Tibra Capital is sponsoring three undergraduate prizes, worth $500 each, for UoW maths students.
Thanks go to Tim Berry and Josh Quigley, from Tibra Capital, for the outstanding level of support they are providing to UoW maths students, under this program.
Trailblazers Award
UOW has just finished its 4th Trailblazer innovation competition. One of our PhD students, Guanghua Lian, was among 19 finalists and he was highly commended for his work entitled “Closed-form exact solution approach for pricing variance swaps”.
The detailed story can be read on the website:
http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW047187.html
Congratulations to Guanghua for this outstanding achievement.
Photo: Trailblazer award recipient Guanghua Lian, left, is seen here with Professor Song-Ping Zhu from Informatics and Andrew Davis from UniQuest Pty Ltd.
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Recent achievements
Three members of the School have recently been recognised for their research activities.
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David Steel - highly commended in the Outstanding Achievement in Research Partnerships Award. This award recognises the outstanding contributions that David and his research team and their partners at the Australian Bureau of Statistics are making towards research excellence.
Anne Porter - A Carrick Grant (now renamed to the Australian Learning and Teaching Council) for a project entitled "Building Leadership Capacity for Development and Sharing of Mathematics Learning Resources across Disciplines and Universities".
Philip Laird - the individual Community Engagement Award for his significant and sustained commitment to the community in multiple roles over many years.
PhD Scholarship in Ocean Wave Modelling and Marine Renewable Energy Systems
The University of Wollongong is offering an APA(I) scholarship to a full time candidate, wishing to enrol in a PhD program, starting from July 2008. The stipend for this award is $30,000 per annum for three years (tax exempt), subject to satisfactory progress.
The successful candidate will be involved in the development of a new hydrodynamic wave model to study wave interaction with an Oscillating Water Column device used to convert ocean wave energy to electricity or to desalinate seawater.
For more details, please click here.
Honour for Matt Wand
Professor Matthew Wand has been elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences, in recognition of his internationally known work in semiparametric statistics and statistical analysis for flow cytometry. Election to the Academy is an honour that is awarded for a career that has significantly advanced, and continues to advance, the world’s scientific knowledge. [March 2008] |
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AMSI Summer School 2009
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The School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics will host the 2009 AMSI Summer School and A/Prof. Jacqui Ramagge has been appointed Director. It will be held over Jan-Feb 2009 and will mean that UOW will host a number of high profile national/international guest lecturers and about 100 Honours/Postgrad students from all over Australia. The Summer School allows Australia's best students to do courses which are not normally available in their home institutions. [March 08] |
Linkage Grant success
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Dr Mark Tranmer, University of Manchester |
Dr Robert Clark, UoW |
Prof David Steel, Prof Ray Chambers and Dr Robert Clark, Centre for Statistical & Survey Methodology, UoW and Their collaborative project aims to develop methods to better determine the impact of household structures and other groups/social networks on unemployment, poverty, educational attainment, crime victimisation and poor health. Only Seven grants were funded nationally. [March 08] | |
ANZIAM medal awarded to Jim Hill
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Professor Jim Hill was awarded the ANZIAM Medal at the annual conference held 3-7 February 2008 in Katoomba. ANZIAM is a Division of the Australian Mathematical Society which promotes industrial and applied mathematics in Australia and New Zealand. |
The medal is the premier award of the Society and confirms Jim as one of Australia's leading mathematicians. It is also further evidence that the School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics is home to some of the best mathematicians and statisticians in the country.
The award was made for Jim's outstanding achievements in applied mathematics and services to ANZIAM. The citation, which was read out at the award ceremony, is available here.
Maths in Industry Study Group
The Mathematics and Statistics Industry Study Group held at the University of Wollongong from 28 January to 1 February investigated a range of topics including the shelf life of wine to tsunami risk modelling for Australia
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(from left) Dr Andrew Fowler (University of Limerick); Dr Jane Sexton, (Geoscience Australia); Associate Professor Tim Marchant (MISG director, UOW); and Dr Maureen Edwards, (Assistant Director, MISG) |
Industries bring a problem that they want solved to MISG, and the mathematicians and statisticians work in groups to mathematically model the processes involved. This leads to a better understanding of the problem, and, if all goes well, a solution.
The organisations attending the conference this year are Geoscience Australia, Integral Energy, New Zealand Steel, Provisor/Food Sciences Australia, Transpower New Zealand and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Details of the industry problems are available from the MISG website http://www.uow.edu.au/informatics/maths/research/misg/
and for an article by the Illawarra Mercury about MISG see http://illawarra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/general/mixing-maths-and-fine-wine/1172519.html
Accreditation
Late in 2007, the School applied to the Australian Mathematical Society (AMS) for formal accreditation of its undergraduate mathematical programs. The assessor's report was very positive, and the AMS has approved the accreditation of our degrees for a five year period, 2008 – 2012 inclusive.
Some of the strengths that were identified in the report were:
- Excellent integration of modelling and computing in mathematics courses.
- A comprehensive selection of traditional and modern subject offerings.
- Student mentoring and support.
- Strong and innovative degree offerings such as the BMathFin and BMathAdv
- Good use of modern technologies in teaching and learning.
- Good gender balance among both staff and student body
A full copy of the Accreditation report can be viewed here.