ANZIAM '13

Dr Heinz Bauschke - University of British Columbia, Kelowna

Heinz H. Bauschke is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia, Kelowna and a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Convex Analysis and Optimization. He was born in Frankfurt, where he received his .Diplom-Mathematiker (mit Auszeichnung). from Goethe Universitat in 1990. He defended his Ph.D. thesis in Mathematics at Simon Fraser University in 1996, and was awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal for his graduate work. After an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship spent at the University of Waterloo, at the Pennsylvania State University, and at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Dr Bauschke became College Professor at Okanagan University College in 1998. He was also Principal Researcher for Workfire and Packeteer, where his work on JPEG image compression led to a US patent. He joined the University of Guelph in 2001, and he returned to Kelowna in 2005, when Okanagan University College turned into the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus in Kelowna (UBCO). Dr Bauschke has authored or co-authored more than 80 papers in Analysis and Optimization. Jointly with Dr Patrick Combettes, he completed and published the 468-page monograph Convex Analysis and Monotone Operator Theory in Hilbert Spaces with Springer in 2011. He has also co-edited the book Fixed-Point Algorithms for Inverse Problems in Science and Enginnering, which appeared in 2011 in the Springer series Optimization and Its Application. His work has been cited more than 3,500 times. In 2009, he became UBCO's first Researcher of the Year.

Professor Keith Devlin - Stanford University

Professor Keith Devlin is a co-founder and Executive Director of the university's H-STAR institute, a co-founder of the Stanford Media X research network, and a Senior Researcher at CSLI. He is a World Economic Forum Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis.

Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition. He has written 31 books and over 80 published research articles. Recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his "innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics." He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio.

Professor Matthias Ehrgott - University of Auckland

Professor Matthias Ehrgott grew up in the Palatinate region of Germany. He studied mathematics, computer science and economics at the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. In 2000 Matthias joined the Department of Engineering Science as a Lecturer. In 2002 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer and in 2004 to Associate Professor. From 2006 to 2008 he also held the position of Directeur de Recherche at Laboratoire Informatique de Nantes Atlantique in France. In 2011 he became Professor and the seventh Head of the Department of Engineering Science.

Professor G. Bard Ermentrout - University of Pittsburgh

Professor G. Bard Ermentrout is currently a Professor of Mathematics, Adjunct Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh and a Distinguished University Professor of Computational Biology. Professor Ermentrout is interested in the applications of nonlinear dynamics to biological problems. His main focus is in the area of mathematical neuroscience where he tries to understand the patterns of activity in networks of neurons.

Professor Ermentrout models recurrent activity, waves, and oscillations in a variety of neural systems including olfaction (sense of smell), rat whisker barrels, cortical slices, and working memory. He is also interested in problems from physiology, immunology, and cell biology all of which he has modelled with students and postdocs.

Professor Chris Glasbey - BIOSS Edinburgh

Professor Chris Glasbey's area of research is spatial and temporal models, including image analysis and bioinformatic applications. He coordinates BioSS's PhD programme and holds honorary/visiting professorships at Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Universities, SAC and Queensland University of Technology, Australia. In 2009 Professor Glasbey was elected to Fellowship of The Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Professor Graeme Hocking - Murdoch University

Professor Hocking is an authority on reservoir and porous media withdrawal flows. The work has included models of both groundwater and surface water behaviour, and has used analytical, numerical and experimental techniques. It was his work on the two-layer flow model that was the first to conclusively show the relationship between the cusped, single-layer steady-state withdrawal flows and fully two-layer flows. He was also part of the team that showed that there can be more than one critical withdrawal flow rate in a reservoir context. He has found critical flow parameters and mix proportions in supercritical flows for a number of geometrical configurations in both aquifers and reservoirs and also in a tropical island with a lens of underground freshwater above the ocean sea water. His work on reservoir modeling has included significant contributions to a simulation package that has been used in both research and actual reservoir management and design. He has also produced significant work on the intrusion of inflows and rising of plumes when free surfaces exist. He has participated in Mathematics-in-Industry Study Groups in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa, often as a project moderator, and is currently the Co-chief editor of the ANZIAM Journal.

Professor Hanna Kokko - The Australian National University

Professor Hanna Kokko completed her PhD at Helsinki University in 1997. She is a Professor of Evolutionary Ecology at the Australian National University, and is an Australian Laureate Fellow (from 2010 onwards). Professor Kokko's seeks to understand the links between evolutionary biology and ecology, to gain the whole picture. One of her main research areas is animal sexual selection, encompassing the evolution of mating systems, sex roles, and parental roles. Another area of Professor Kokko's research explores ecological questions, such as the social and spatial behaviour of populations, the competition for breeding grounds and habitat choices.

Professor Robert McKibbin - Massey University

Professor Robert McKibbin is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, on the Auckland campus in New Zealand. Over the past two decades, Professor McKibbin has been one of the pre-eminent Applied Mathematicians in New Zealand, with a particular focus on geophysical, geothermal and industrial applications.

His mathematical work ranges from geothermal fluid dynamics and hydrothermal eruptions, to the modelling of ground subsidence and aluminium smelting cells. Professor McKibbon was awarded the ANZIAM medal in 2012, and the full citation is found here: 2012 ANZIAM Medal.

Dr Matthew Simpson - Queensland University of Technology

Dr Matthew Simpson obtained a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Newcastle in 1998 and a PhD from the University of Western Australia in 2003. Between 2003 and 2010 he was a Research Fellow and then Australian Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Since 2010 he has been a Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology.

Dr Simpon's research interests include developing advanced computational and mathematical modelling for biological applications such as the development of the enteric nervous system, and that describe multiscale data from cell biology experiments. Dr Simpson is the recipient of the 2012 ANZIAM Michell Medal for outstanding new researchers, and the full citation can be found here: 2012 ANZIAM JH Michell Medal.