WIMSIG NEWSLETTER — June 2022

Latest AustMS WIMSIG Awardees

Congratulations to the following awardees of the Maryam Mirzakhani Award and the April 2022 round (Round 16) of the Cheryl E. Praeger Travel Award.

Praeger Award

  • Bethany Caldwell (University of South Australia) was awarded a Praeger Award to participate in the 15th ORCOS Viennese Conference on Optimal Control and Dynamic Games and the 19th EUROPT Workshop on Advances in Continuous Optimization, followed by EUROPT 2022.
  • Em Thompson (Monash University) was awarded a Praeger Award to participate in Reflections on Geometry: 3-Manifolds, Groups and Singularities — a conference in honour of Walter Neumann at Colombia University.
  • Lucinda Harrison (The University of Melbourne) was awarded a Praeger Award to participate in the European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ECMTB) in Heidelberg (Germany) in September 2022.
  • Punya Alahakoon Mudiyanselage (The University of Melbourne) was awarded a Praeger Award to participate in the European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ECMTB).

Maryam Mirzakhani Award

  • Vinesha Peiris (Swinburne) whose research is on generalised rational Chebyshev problems, their extensions and their applications into different disciplines, such as data analysis and deep learning.

A big thank-you to the Selection Committee, comprised of Sevvandi Kandanaarachchi (RMIT), Melissa Humphries (Adelaide), and Zsuzsanna Dancso (Sydney) for their work in assessing the applications.

Round 17 of the travel awards is now open and closes on October 1, 2022.

New fellows of the Australian Academy of Science

The Australian Academy of Science has announced its newly elected fellows, including two members of WIMSIG — Catherine Greenhill (UNSW) and Kate Smith-Miles (Melbourne). WIMSIG congratulates Catherine and Kate. They are both fabulous mathematicians who have shown leadership in their technical fields as well as in their academic communities.

Women in Mathematics Day Reports

Western Sydney University

On Thursday 12 May, Western Sydney University celebrated Women in Mathematics Day and the birthday of the late Maryam Mirzakhani — a Fields-medal-winning Iranian mathematician and a Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University — with a hybrid symposium organised by Prof Roozbeh Hazrat at the Peter Shergold Parramatta City campus.

The gathering began with a Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country by Western’s A/Prof Leanne Rylands, followed by the VC Prof Barney Glover introducing our guest speakers — Prof Cheryl Praeger, Ass/Prof Susan Wei, and Prof Natalie Thamwattana, referencing his love of mathematics and delight in Western’s achievements in continued dedication and ongoing commitment as a global leader in gender equality.
 
Cheryl Praeger, Susan Wei, and Natalie Thamwattana spoke on their inspirations and journeys to becoming mathematicians, giving fascinating insight into their paths into academia and a little about their current research. We were delighted to see participation from female students, as well as staff, including some from other universities. The gathering concluded with a short panel discussion with the speakers.

We thank the School of Data, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, as well as WIMSIG, for generous support.

University of Wollongong

On Thursday 12 May, at the University of Wollongong, we hosted an event for Women in Maths Day together with over 125 others happening around the world. We began with a keynote from Katie Buchhorn, who gave an overview of her career in mathematics, and followed this with a panel discussion featuring a recent graduate, an early career academic, a PhD student, and an undergraduate. The panelists shared their experiences and advice for aspiring mathematicians and answered questions from the audience. The panel and talk gave a broad overview of the range of opportunities available to mathematicians, and the challenges of working in this field. The event finished with a networking session, giving attendees the opportunity to meet and chat with the panelists.

The event was well attended, with participants ranging from undergraduate students to academics in other fields. The atmosphere was warm and supportive, and everyone left feeling motivated and inspired. We plan to run more events like this in the future.

RMIT University

The May 12th initiative brings together events celebrating women in mathematics in the honour of the birth date of Maryam Mirzakhani. To celebrate International Women in Mathematics Day, the School of Science at RMIT university hosted a hybrid event, which featured strong women mathematicians as the guest speakers, including Prof Asha Rao, A/Prof Katherine Seaton, Dr Joanne Hall, and Dr Kerri Morgan, who were also the members for the panel discussion towards the end. The presentations were guided by themes such as promotion applications, maths craft, course redevelopment, and connecting with industry. The participants were academic staff and students from their final year of undergraduate studies through to PhD, as well as early-career researchers, from different schools and universities.

EVENTS

Reaction-diffusion equations and their modelling applications

Prof Natalie Thamwattana (Newcastle) is presenting a seminar at MATRIX on Tuesday 7 June at 10:00–11:00 AEST. Please register for remote attendance via Zoom.

MATRIX Seminar – Professor Natalie Thamwattana

Women in Data Science Celebration 

Wednesday 15 June at 11:00-13:00 (AEST) — QUT Gardens Point campus

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/women-in-data-science-celebration-tickets-338659127567

Events organised by the Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science

“Toward Gender Equality in Science: Perspectives from Psychology“, organised by UPsyS is taking place on Monday 13 June, with the following lecturers and titles.

  • Pam Maras: “Toward Gender Equality in Science: Perspectives from Psychology“
  • Vindhya Undurti: “Gender Equality in Psychology: An intersectional feminist perspective from South Asia“
  • Isabelle Régner: “The influence of gender stereotypes on cognitive performances and hiring decisions“

More details and registration form here.

“Quotas for women in science: Are they an effective step towards equality and/or equity?“, organised by IUBS is taking place on Wednesday 29 June, with the following lecturers/titles.

  • Marguerite Evans-Galea, Director of the STEM Careers Strategy with the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and Co-Founder/CEO of Women in STEM Australia
  • Renee Borges, Indian Academy of Sciences: “Gender in STEM streams in India”
  • Gerlind Wallon, Deputy Director EMBO, EMBO Women in Science: “Exploring quotas in academia”
  • Silvia González Pérez, Vice Chancellor of Research at Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Ecuador: “Why is there gender equity at UTPL?”

More details and registration form here.

OPPORTUNITIES

Upcoming maths jobs at UniSA in 2022

This is to announce that the University of South Australia will shortly advertise two continuing positions in the mathematical sciences (this is in addition to several positions that were recently filled). The positions will be advertised at Level A/B, and will be teaching/research or teaching-intensive, with at least one to be a teaching/research position. The areas of specialisation are likely to include optimisation, statistics, data analytics, and classical applied mathematical modelling. At least one of the successful applicants will be female or gender-diverse, and the hiring process will not conclude until this goal has been met. The initial closing date will be at least six weeks after the positions are advertised, and applications will remain open after that if necessary. There will be flexibility in the starting dates for the successful applicants. Women and gender-diverse people are strongly encouraged to apply, as are early-career researchers, recent PhD graduates, and PhD students nearing completion. 

It is intended to post the job advertisements in an upcoming issue of the WIMSIG newsletter and through the AustMS jobs listings, as well as on the UniSA website.

The University of Melbourne

The University of Newcastle

Curtin University

RMIT University

  • PhD scholarship in Enhancing Zero-Knowledge Server Functionality
    This is an RMIT PhD scholarship co-funded by industry partner LifeReady Pty Ltd. The project aims to develop novel mathematical techniques to build efficient zero knowledge search, update and computation capabilities for servers that can protect sensitive data. Please contact arathi.arakala@rmit.edu.au for more information. Applications close Thursday 30 June 2022.
  • Lecturer in Statistics and Analytics (full time, continuing)
    — Closing date: Sunday 5 June, 2022
  • Lecturer in Mathematics (full time, continuing)
    — Closing date: Sunday 5 June, 2022

MEDIA

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Please send items to WIMSIG-news@austms.org.au.

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