NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS (NZIMA) Newsletter 9 November 2005 This is the ninth 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. Renewal of CoRE funding 2. New NZIMA programmes 3. Profile: Robert McLachlan, this year's Maclaurin Fellow 4. Establishment of Pacific Rim Mathematical Association 5. Other news 6. Forthcoming conferences in the mathematical sciences in NZ 7. Forthcoming conferences in the mathematical sciences elsewhere 1. RENEWAL OF CoRE FUNDING In early September we were very pleased to learn that the NZIMA's Centres of Research Excellence (CoRE) funding has been renewed through to 2008, following a positive review by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). At the same time, the New Zealand government announced that all seven CoREs would be reviewed again in 2006, with the aim of extending CoRE funding for successful centres through to 2014/15 (and offering three years of 'phase-down' funding for any that are unsuccessful). This year's review complimented the NZIMA on its achievements to date, especially the high quality of our research programmes and record, the strength of our international linkages, governance and management, and encouragement of students. Also it recommended that we take further steps to build up the profile of the NZIMA and develop a longer term vision and identity, in order to enhance the NZIMA's sustainability. We will be taking up these recommendations in the coming months. 2. NEW NZIMA PROGRAMMES Two new programmes will commence in 2006/07, as follows: Modelling Invasive Species and Weed Impact, Directors: Jennifer Brown, Alex James and David Wall (U Canterbury) proposed to start late 2006 or early 2007 Partial Differential Equations: Applications, Analysis and Inverse Problems, Directors: Colin Fox, Mike Meylan, Boris Pavlov (U Auckland), proposed to start in the second half of 2006. We are very grateful to members of our International Scientific Advisory Board for their involvement in helping us select these programmes. We are now calling for proposals for new programmes to commence in 2007/08. Further details are available on the NZIMA's website http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz 3. PROFILE: ROBERT MCLACHLAN (MACLAURIN FELLOW) Robert McLachlan is this year's Maclaurin Fellow of the NZIMA. Robert is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at Massey University's Palmerston North campus. Following his PhD at Caltech in 1990, he spent three years at the University of Colorado, and since being appointed at Massey University he has held visiting positions at the ETH in Zürich, the Isaac Newton Institute (Cambridge), and the MSRI (Berkeley). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2002, and won the New Zealand Association of Scientists Research Medal in 2003. For the last six years he has also served as Editor of the Newsletter of the New Zealand Mathematical Society. Robert's many research interests include numerical analysis, dynamical systems and fluid mechanics, and he specialises in geometric numerical integration of ordinary and partial differential equations. He is devoting this year to further research in geometric integration, a subject in which he is regarded as both a pioneer and world leader. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF PACIFIC RIM MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION Marston Conder took part in a Pacific Rim Mathematical Forum at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) in October 2005, at the invitation of the directors of the MSRI (Berkeley) and PIMS (Canada). There he gave a short presentation on the NZIMA, and also had helpful discussions with representatives of AIM (the American Institute of Mathematics), AMSI (the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute), IMS (the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Singapore) and PIMS. A principal outcome of the meeting was a decision to establish a Pacific Rim Mathematical Association (otherwise known as 'PRIMA'), with the aim of promoting and facilitating the development of the mathematical sciences throughout the Pacific Rim region. It is intended that this will involve improved networking, coordination of activities, training (e.g. summer schools), infrastructural assistance, sharing of expertise, pooling of resources etc. The NZIMA will be joining this association, and Marston Conder has been invited to join the Liaison Committee. 5. OTHER NEWS Professors Bakh Khoussainov (a key member of the NZIMA programme on Logic and Computation in 2003/04) and James Sneyd (a member of the NZIMA's Governing Board) have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Also James Sneyd has won the NZ Mathematical Society's Research Award for 2005, jointly with Professor Robert McLachlan (Maclaurin Fellow and director of the NZIMA programme on Dynamical Systems and Numerical Analysis). The inaugural John Butcher Award (established to recognise John's long and productive career in numerical analysis, and in particular in the numerical solution of ordinary differential equations) was awarded to Tatiana Marquez Lago (of the University of New Mexico) for her talk "Numerical estimation of progesterone transcriptional activity in the ERB1 pathway using Chemcell" at the SciCADE 2005 conference held in Nagoya, Japan, in May. The NZIMA is sponsoring a visit to New Zealand by Tatiana in December, and she will give an invited lecture at the NZ Mathematics Colloquium at Palmerston North. 6. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES IN NZ 5-7 December 2005, at Palmerston North: 2005 NZ Mathematics Colloquium (and AGM of the NZ Math Society) See: http://mathscolloquium.massey.ac.nz/ 8-15 January 2006, at Taipa: NZMRI Summer Workshop and Meeting, on the Poincare Conjecture See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/Events/2006/SummerWorkshop 9-13 January 2006, in Dunedin International Symposium on Fractional Calculus See: http://www.maths.otago.ac.nz/~bbaeumer/symposium.htm 30 Jan - 3 Feb 2006, Mathematics in Industry Study Group, at Albany See: http://misg2006.massey.ac.nz/ 12-16 February 2006, in Auckland 3rd International Conference on Ethnomathematics See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/Events/2006/ICEM-3/ 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/ 10-14 July 2006, in Rotorua International Conference on Analytic Topology and Applications See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~cao/conference06.html 7. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES ELSEWHERE 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