NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS (NZIMA) ====== One of New Zealand's Centres of Research Excellence ====== Newsletter 19 May 2008 We're pleased to give you another update on news from the mathematical sciences CoRE, the NZIMA. The fourth issue of our colourful twice-yearly NZ-IMAges bulletin has just appeared. We hope you like it. If you didn't get a copy and would like to, please let us know! Marston Conder and Vaughan Jones Co-Directors of the NZIMA SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 1. NZIMA support for postgraduate research projects and other activities 2. Summer meetings 2009 to 2011 3. Profile: Ben Martin 4. Recent events 5. Awards and Honours 6. NZIMA Annual Report for 2007 7. Update on events calendar 1. NZIMA SUPPORT FOR POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECTS & OTHER ACTIVITIES * Postgraduate research projects * The NZIMA is now supporting the following new research projects by New Zealand university postgraduate students, in addition to those projects forming part of our thematic programmes (and others announced previously): - "A constructive look at dynamical systems" (Masters project) Matthew Hendtlass, U Canterbury, supervised by Prof. Douglas Bridges - "Algorithms for fast image restoration" (PhD project) Rachael Tappenden, U Canterbury, supervised by Dr Ian Coope - "Modelling hydrothermal eruptions" (PhD project) Luke Fullard, Massey University, supervised by Dr Thomasin Smith These bring to a total of 60 Masters and PhD student research projects (and 17 postdoctoral fellowship projects) supported by the NZIMA, on a wide range of topics in mathematics, statistics, operations research and their applications (including valuable applications in ecology, education, engineering, marine science, medicine and transportation). * Conference & Visitors * The NZIMA will be supporting the following future events and activities: - 7th Australia-NZ Mathematics Colloquium, Christchurch, December 2008 - Half day workshop for women in the mathematical sciences, Christchurch, December 2008 - Workshop on Permutation Patterns, Dunedin, June 2008 - NZ Mathematics & Statistics Postgraduate Students Conference, Auckland, November 2008. 2. SUMMER MEETINGS 2009 to 2011 The NZIMA will sponsor summer meetings (run by the NZMRI) for the next three years, as follows: * "Algorithmic Randomness", January 2009, at Napier Organiser: Rod Downey (Victoria University of Wellington) * "Groups and Representations", January 2010, probably at Hanmer Springs Organisers: Eamonn O'Brien (U Auckland) and Ben Martin (U Canterbury) * "Dynamical Systems", January 2011, possibly at Tekapo Organisers: Vivien Kirk (U Auckland) and Rua Murray (U Canterbury) As usual, these meetings will be particularly suitable for graduate students who will have the opportunity to learn from and interact with some of the world's leading experts in the relevant field. 3. PROFILE: BEN MARTIN Ben Martin is a rising star based at the University of Canterbury. After completing a double Honours degree in maths and physics at the University of Otago, Ben did his PhD at King's College London in the mid 1990s. He then held short-term postdoctoral positions at the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, Macquarie University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Kent (UK), before taking up a permanent position in 2004 at the University of Canterbury, where he is now a Senior Lecturer. Ben wrote his PhD thesis on character varieties, which are spaces of representations of discrete groups. The original motivation was topological, but he became more interested in algebraic aspects, which eventually led to some applications to the theory of algebraic groups, which is now his main interest. He also works on asymptotic growth functions of infinite discrete groups (subgroup growth and representation growth) and lattices in automorphism groups of trees. Other interests include geometric invariant theory, number theory and cryptography. Ben organised the NZIMA-sponsored Conference on Groups & Representations held in Kaikoura in January 2008, and jointly with Eamonn O'Brien he is organising the NZIMA summer meeting on the same topics for January 2010. He also features on our "MathsReach" resource (http://www.mathsreach.org) in an interview about number theory and its applications in secure data transmission. 4. RECENT EVENTS * Workshop on Respiratory Modelling A 3-day workshop on Multi-scale Modelling of the Respiratory System was held at the University of Auckland, 19-22 February 2008. This meeting brought together 70 mathematicians, engineers, physiologists and medical researchers, including 45 from New Zealand and others from the US, France, Australia, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Slovenia and Germany. The workshop was sponsored also by Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and Philips Medical, and its organiser Alona Ben-Tal (Massey University) was pleased to see it stimulate several new collaborations for NZ-based researchers, modellers and medical researchers. * Public lectures by Peter Cameron (Forder Lecturer 2008) A number of lectures were given by Professor Peter Cameron (Queen Mary, University of London) at university centres around New Zealand in April. Peter Cameron was visiting as the London Mathematical Society's Forder Lecturer for 2008 (made possible from a bequest to the LMS by Henry George Forder, who was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Auckland from 1934 to 1955). One of his lectures was entertainingly titled "Sudoku: Is it Mathematics?". He was also interviewed by Kim Hill on National Radio, and a copy of the interview can be heard or downloaded from http://www.radionz.co.nz/podcasts/saturday.rss * Publication of latest issue of NZ-IMAges The fourth issue of our colourful twice-yearly bulletin "NZ-IMAges" has been published and is now being distributed. Electronic copies of all issues are available from http://www.nzima.org/Publications.html 5. AWARDS AND HONOURS * NZIMA Co-Director Marston Conder will become the Royal Society of New Zealand's first Vice President International when his term as President of the RSNZ Academy comes to an end on 30th June 2008 * Prof. Mike Eastwood, one of our Visiting Maclaurin Fellows for 2008, has won a Federation Fellowship from the Australian Research Council * Dr Nic Smith, director of one of our first programmes (on modelling cellular function), has been invited to co-direct a programme on "The Cardiac Physiome Project: mathematical and computational foundations" at the Isaac Newton Institute (Cambridge, UK) from June to August 2009. [Nic is the second of our programme directors to win this honour: Mike Steel was invited to run a Newton Institute programme on Phylogenetics from September to December 2007.] 6. NZIMA ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2007 Our annual report for 2007 (approved by the NZIMA's Governing Board in March) is now available, at http://www.nzima.org/Publications.html 7. FORTHCOMING EVENTS IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES IN NZ & PACIFIC 16-20 June 2008, in Dunedin: Conference on Permutation Patterns See http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/staffpriv/mike/PP2008 7-8 July 2008, at Hamilton: New Zealand Statistical Association Conference 2008 See http://nzsa.rsnz.org/NZSA2008 14-18 July 2008, at Auckland: GLADE 2008 Conference on numerical methods for differential equations and related problems See: http://www.auckland-ode-2008.org 21-25 July 2008, at Auckland: GLADE 2008 Workshop on numerical methods for differential equations and related problems See: http://www.auckland-ode-2008.org 4-8 August 2008, at Albany: Research workshop on parabolic geometry and PDE See http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/wiki/Research_Workshop_on_Parabolic_Geometry 8-12 December 2008, at Christchurch: 7th Australia-New Zealand Mathematics Convention (incorporating the 2008 NZ Mathematics Colloquium) See http://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/ANZMC2008 15-19 December 2008, at Auckland: 4th International Conference on Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing See: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/research/groups/theory/4ICC/index.html 6-10 July 2009, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia: First Pacific Rim Mathematical Congress See http://www.primath.org/news/upcoming_events/1st_prima_congress_2009.html 29 September - 2 October 2009, at Palmerston North: Biennial Conference of the NZ Association of Mathematics Teachers "Pi in the Sky: Extending Mathematical Horizons" (NZAMT11) http://www.nzamt.org.nz/nzamt11/ 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. 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