Edinburgh SIAM Student Chapter Inaugural Conference

The inaugural conference of the Edinburgh SIAM Student Chapter was held on 31st March 2010, at the Cairn Auditorium, Heriot-Watt Postgraduate Center, Heriot-Watt Campus, Riccarton. The event was a huge success, with over 50 participants made up of both faculty members and students from different branches of science at Heriot-Watt University and University of Edinburgh.

The events started by the official opening remarks by Prof Steve Chapman, Principal and Vice- Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University and the welcome address by the Chapter president, Karen Schmid of the Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University.

The day featured 2 distinguished plenary speakers. The first plenary speaker was Dr Robert Leese, the Director of the Smith Institute for Industrial Mathematics and System Engineering, and Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford. The title of his talk was Combinatorial Auctions - and the One That Got Away. The second plenary speaker was Prof Sir David Wallace CBE FRS FREng, the Director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and Master of Churchill College, Cambridge. He spoke on Five Millennia of Mathematics and its Applications.

Three student members of the Chapter had the opportunity to briefly introduce their work in three short student talks. Jenny Bloomfield of the Department of Mathematics, Herriot-Watt University spoke on Modelling Cell Proliferation while Giacomo Mazzi and Bubacarr Bah both of the School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh spoke on Computations of Time Dependent Quantum Expectations and Random matrix theory in Compressed Sensing, respectively. A variety of posters from Geosciences, Engineering and Mathematics showcased work of students in the two universities and beyond. The poster competition was jointly won by Pablo Gonzalez-Brevis (School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh) and Yan Zaretskiy (Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University). The prizes for the winners were presented by Prof Nigel Brown, Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, who also gave the closing remarks.

The Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) exists to foster strong interactions between mathematics and other scientific and technological communities. The Edinburgh SIAM Student Chapter, as an initiative of students of the Institute of Petroleum Engineering and Department of Mathematics at Heriot-Watt University, and the School of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh, exemplifies this interaction, is the newest example of the growing cooperation between these two Universities. Membership to this chapter is open to all staff and students of Herriot-Watt University and University of Edinburgh from all science backgrounds. For further information visit: http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/siamstudentchapter/index.html.