NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS (NZIMA) Newsletter 2 February 2004 Welcome to the second quarterly newsletter of the New Zealand Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (NZIMA), one of New Zealand's seven Centres of Research Excellence. We hope you find the contents helpful and interesting. Marston Conder and Vaughan Jones Co-Directors of the NZIMA SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 1. NZIMA News 2. NZIMA programmes 3. Profiles of Visiting Maclaurin Fellows 4. Forthcoming conferences in the mathematical sciences in NZ 1. NZIMA NEWS **************************************************************** * Recent honours and awards * **************************************************************** * Prof. Robert McLachlan (Programme Director for the programme in Dynamical Systems and Numerical Analysis) won the NZ Association of Scientists' Research Medal for 2003, for his work in geometric integration * Dr Rod Gover (Maclaurin Fellow for 2004) won the NZ Mathematical Society's Research Award for 2003, for his work in conformal differential geometry * Dr Charles Semple (member of the programme committee for the NZIMA-sponsored programme in Phylogenetics) won the Royal Society of New Zealand's Hamilton Memorial Prize (for beginners in scientific or technological research) in November 2003, for his work in matroid theory and evolutionary trees * Dr Guohua Wu (a partipant in the NZIMA's Logic and Computation programme) won the Royal Society of New Zealand's Hatherton Award for the best paper by a PhD student at a New Zealand university in the physical sciences, earth sciences, or mathematical and information sciences, for 2003, for his work on isolation and lattice embeddings * Vaughan Jones (NZIMA Co-Director) has been elected Vice-President of the American Mathematical Society * Marston Conder (NZIMA Co-Director) has been elected to the Council of the Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand 2. NZIMA Programmes Programmes sponsored by the NZIMA with principal activity in 2004 or 2005 are as follows: Logic and Computation: research on the theories of computability and complexity, and the algorithmic study of randomness. Details: http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/Programmes.html#LC Dynamical Systems & Numerical Analysis: theory and applications of dynamical systems and the numerical analysis of ordinary differential equations http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/Programmes.html#DSNA Combinatorics and its Applications: recent advances in combinatorics, and applications to computational biology, complexity theory, theoretical computer science and algebra http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/Programmes.html#CA Geometry: Interactions with algebra and analysis Details: http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/Programmes.html#GIAA **************************************************************** * The NZIMA is now calling for preliminary proposals for new * * thematic programmes for 2005/06, with a closing date of * * 15 March 2004. For further details, see * * * * http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/Funding.html#Progs * * * **************************************************************** 3. PROFILES OF VISITING MACLAURIN FELLOWS * Rick Laugesen * Prof. Rick Laugesen (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) is the NZIMA's first visiting Maclaurin Fellow. His primary area of research is Besov spaces and other areas of mathematical physics. Since arriving in New Zealand last year, he has worked with colleagues at the Universities of Auckland, Canterbury and Otago, and has given research lectures at the Universities of Otago, Wellington (Victoria), Massey at Albany, Auckland, and Canterbury. He also attended the VIC2004 conference in February, which he found "very useful and informative". * Hal Caswell * Prof. Hal Caswell (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts) has been visiting since December 2003, and working with a number of different colleagues in Auckland and Wellington on the development and analysis of matrix models for spatially structured populations. As a result of his attendance at the 3rd International Wildlife Management Congress at the University of Canterbury, he participated in a workshop organized by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries to develop plans for using population models to guide policy on reducing the by-catch of albatross and other seabirds in New Zealand waters. 4. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES IN NZ 21-23 April 2004, in Auckland: Workshop on Computational Partial and Ordinary Differential Equations, See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~butcher/pde-ode/ 30 August - 3 September 2004, at Raglan: International Workshop on Dynamical Systems and Numerical Analysis, at Raglan See: http://www.math.waikato.ac.nz/~rua/dsna.html#events 30 August - 3 September 2004, at Palmerston North: 7th Australasian Conference on Mathematics and Computers in Sport See: http://7mcs.massey.ac.nz/ 13-18 December 2004, at Taupo: Conference in Combinatorics and its Applications, in association with the 29th Australasian Conference in Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing (29th ACCMCC), at Taupo See: http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/combinatorics/conference.html 8-15 January 2005, at Napier: 11th NZMRI Summer Meeting on Geometry: Interactions with Algebra and Analysis See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/Conferences/2005/geometry-program/nzmri.html 30 January - 3 February 2005, at Napier: Annual meeting of ANZIAM (Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics) See: http://www.anziam.org.au/nzbranch.html 14-18 February 2005, at Auckland: International Meeting on Geometry: Interactions with Algebra and Analysis See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/Conferences/2005/geometry-program/auckland.html SUBSCRIBING AND UNSUBSCRIBING Please forward the NZIMA newsletter to any non-subscriber to whom the material may be relevant and who may wish to receive the publication regularly. 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