NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS (NZIMA) Newsletter 7 May 2005 This is the seventh 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 interesting and informative. Marston Conder and Vaughan Jones Co-Directors of the NZIMA SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 1. Mid-term review of Centres of Research Excellence 2. New Maclaurin Fellows and NZIMA Scholar 3. Further NZIMA-sponsored visitors & events 4. Other news 5. Forthcoming conferences in the mathematical sciences in NZ 6. Forthcoming conferences in the mathematical sciences elsewhere 1. REVIEW OF CENTRES OF RESEARCH EXCELLENCE New Zealand's Ministry of Education and Tertiary Education Commission have been conducting a review of NZ's seven Centres of Research Excellence (CoREs). A review team visited the NZIMA on 20th April and met with Sir Ian Axford (Chair of the NZIMA's Governing Board), Marston Conder (Co-Director), and Margaret Woolgrove, as well as Vivien Kirk (Co-director of our programme on Dynamical Systems and Numerical Analysis), Richard Evans (postdoctoral fellow on our geometry programme) and Garry Nathan (NZIMA postgraduate scholar). The meeting was positive and helpful, and we look forward to getting confirmation of our CoRE funding for another two years (mid-2006 to mid-2008). Also the Directors of all seven CoREs are together preparing to make a case for longer term funding to sustain the benefits they have achieved to date. 2. NEW MACLAURIN FELLOWS AND NZIMA SCHOLAR The next Maclaurin Fellows have been selected: Visiting Maclaurin Fellows in 2006 will be Professors Hyman Bass (Michigan) and John Conway (Princeton). Hyman Bass is Professor of Mathematics Education and also Roger Lyndon Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan. He is a highly distinguished mathematician, known especially for his work in algebraic K-theory, number theory, geometric group theory and algebraic geometry, and more recently for ground-breaking research on the mathematics content knowledge of teachers and its relevance to teacher education programmes. He has won numerous awards and fellowships, and has an exceptional record of professional service (including a term as President of the American Mathematical Society 2001-2003). he is expected to visit New Zealand in March/April 2006. John Conway FRS is John von Neumann Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, and is one of the world's most illustrious mathematicians. He has made profound and major contributions to geometry, group theory, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory, and has been the recipient of a significant number of awards and prizes for both mathematics and mathematical exposition. He is expected to visit New Zealand in January 2006 (and also January 2007 and 2008). A full-year Maclaurin Fellowship has been awarded to Professor Geoff Whittle (Victoria University of Wellington) for 2006, subject to continuation of the NZIMA's CoRE funding. Professor Whittle is a leading expert in matroid representability and related aspects of combinatorics. He plans to use the Maclaurin Fellowships to spend time tackling Rota's conjecture and the well-quasi-ordering conjecture for matroids. An NZIMA Postgraduate Scholarship has been awarded to Adam Smith for a Masters thesis project at the University of Auckland (from July 2005) on the statistical validation of the NZ Marine Environment Classification, under the supervision of Drs Marti Anderson and Clinton Duffy. 3. FURTHER NZIMA-SPONSORED VISITORS & EVENTS The NZIMA supported or has committed to support the following: - VIC2005 Conference in Algebra, Wellington, 10-11 February 2005 - Conference on Approximation & Harmonic Analysis, Auckland, 8-11 February 2005 - Visit by C.R. Rao and Workshop on Data Analysis & Statistical Learning, Hamilton, 22 March 2005 - Conference on Sampling & Missing Data, in honour of Alastair Scott, Auckland, 13-14 April 2005 - Visit to NZ by winner of inaugural Butcher Prize, December 2005 - Visit to NZ by Prof. Peter Kuchment (Texas A&M), December 2005 - Visit to NZ by Dr David Borchers (St Andrews), in the first half of 2006 - Conference on Analytic Topology & Applications, Rotorua, 10-14 July 2006. 4. OTHER NEWS The NZIMA's Executive Administrator, Margaret Woolgrove, has taken a period of parental leave (in anticipation of the imminent birth of her first child). We have appointed Kathleen Rushworth as a temporary part-time replacement for Margaret. Kathleen can be contacted by phone at +64-9-3737599 extn 82025 or by email at . 5. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES IN NZ 27-28 June, at Massey University's Albany campus (Auckland): NZIMA Geometry Programme Workshop See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/Conferences/2005/geometry-program/ june-workshop 29 June - 1 July 2005, at Wanaka: Hidden Markov Models and Complex Systems Workshop See: http://nzsa.rsnz.org/HMM1/index.htm 2-7 July 2005, in Auckland: 4th International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking and Literacy (SRTL4 2005) See: http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/srtl4/ 4-6 July 2005, in Dunedin: Annual Conference of the NZ Statistical Association See: http://www.maths.otago.ac.nz/nzsa2005/home.php 5 July 2005, in Auckland: One-day NZIMA meeting on Dynamical Systems and Numerical Analysis See: http://www.math.waikato.ac.nz/~rua/dsna/auckland1_1.html 27 - 30 September 2005, in Christchurch: "Thinking Outside the Square", 9th Biennial New Zealand Association of Mathematics Teachers conference See: http://www.nzamt9.org.nz/ 5 - 7 December 2005, at Palmerston North: 2005 NZ Mathematics Colloquium (and AGM of the NZ Math Society) Website to be advised 8 - 15 January 2006, at Omapere: NZMRI Summer Workshop and Meeting, on the Poincare Conjecture See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/Events/2006/SummerWorkshop 3-7 July 2006, at Sky City, Auckland Joint Conference of the Statistical Society of Australia and the New Zealand Statistical Association (ASC/NZSA 2006) See: http://www.statsnz2006.com/ 6. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES ELSEWHERE 22 - 27 July 2005, in Canberra, Australia: CMA/AMSI Instructional Program in Noncummutative Geometry and Index Theory See: http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/events/ngit05/ 28 July - 1 August 2005, in Canberra, Australia: CMA/AMSI Workshop on Noncummutative Geometry and Index Theory See: http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/events/ngit05/ [The website has details of potential support for students] 22 - 26 Nov 2005, on Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia: DELTA 2005, the 5th Southern Hemisphere Symposium on Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics Teaching and Learning. See: http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/delta05/index.php 5-9 December 2005, at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia: 13th Australasian Conference in Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing (30th ACCMCC). See: http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/cdmc/30accmcc.html SUBSCRIBING AND UNSUBSCRIBING Please forward this NZIMA newsletter to any non-subscriber to whom the material may be relevant and who may wish to receive the publication regularly. To join or to have your name removed from the mailing list, just send an email to