UCL DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS NEWSLETTER 2017/18 De Morgan Association NEWSLETTER UCL Mathematics Department The Department’s commitment to research and teaching of core mathematics, along with our willingness to embrace and collaborate with Professor Robb McDonald researchers in other disciplines, of which there Head Of Mathematics Department are many at UCL, is something we are keen to build on. I am delighted that this ambition has A glance through this year’s De Morgan now been recognised formally by the University. newsletter reveals a busy year with much In September 2017 UCL’s Provost and President, success to celebrate. We were pleased to Professor Michael Arthur, announced a small welcome four new Lecturers: Roger Casals, Ed number of ‘ideas’ key to UCL’s evolution which Segal, Iain Smears and Ewelina Zatorska. We (i) demonstrate genuine, grassroots academic are especially grateful to the estate of Howard enthusiasm, (ii) come from areas that have Davies, a former long-serving colleague, whose the potential to become world-leading and (iii) generous donation helped make one of these be deeply cross-disciplinary. Among these appointments. elite ideas is the ambition to co-locate UCL’s Departments of Mathematics and Statistical The department’s sustained recruitment of Science to form an Institute of Mathematical and outstanding staff such as Ed, Ewelina, Iain, and Statistical Sciences (IMSS). Professor Arthur Roger, along with excellent undergraduate and writes of Mathematics, Statistical Science and postgraduate students clearly demonstrates IMSS: the health of our subject. Mathematics is, of course, a fundamental discipline, and one which ‘Research quality and student experience are is finding ever-increasing applications, often already excellent in these subjects, but they lack in surprising areas. A good example being our scale and facilities compared to world-leading ‘industrial sandpit’ in summer 2017 themed competitors. By combining them, we will be in a on transport security. This highly successful position to reach the global top 50 by 2021 and, workshop, led by Nick Ovenden, brought ultimately, the top 25.’ together UCL mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, physicists and forensic The Department looks forward to working with scientists with industrial and government the University in transforming the IMSS idea representatives, e.g., Motorola Solutions, into reality. There is no better time to do this: Department for Transport and Defence Science mathematical science and its applications is and Technology Laboratory. Real practical flourishing globally. Now is an exciting time to be solutions to pressing problems were discussed, mathematician, especially so at UCL. and areas for further research were identified. LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Letter From The Editor Professor Ted Johnson The annual dinner of the De Morgan Association was held on Friday 9th June 2017 in Senate House, University of London. The Guest of Honour was our own Rafael Prieto Curiel. Rafael was instrumental in setting up the Chalkdust magazine which has been a stunning international success for UCL Mathematics graduate students. Rafael entertained us with both mathematics and background on the invention and production of the magazine. Robb McDonald is stepping down as Head of Department this year. Robb has calmly presided over a period of great change in the department with growing undergraduate enrolments and the establishment of powerful new and augmented research groups including geometry, number theory, inverse modelling, numerical analysis and financial mathematics. Robb will be succeeded by Professor Helen Wilson. Helen’s research is mainly concerned with theoretical modelling of the flow of non-Newtonian fluids such as polymeric materials and particle suspensions. In her inaugural lecture, written up inside with his characteristic panache by Adam Townsend, one of Helen’s former research students, Helen described how fluids containing long polymer molecules behave very differently from ordinary (Newtonian) fluids. Under flow, long polymer molecules stretch giving rise to surprising flow behaviour, and producing undesirable instabilities in industrial processes. Helen is an editor of the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, the Journal of Engineering Mathematics, and Proceedings of the Royal Society A, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Physics of Fluids, chair of the Nominating Committee for the European Society of Rheology, and was, from 2015-2017, President of the British Society of Rheology. Issue - 25 May 2018 Editor Ted Johnson Associate Editor Kate Fraser 2 CONTENTS CONTENTS Letter from The Head of Department .....................................................................1 Letter from The Editor..............................................................................................2 Contents....................................................................................................................3 De Morgan Dinner.............................................................................................4 to 5 The Incredible Predictive Power of String Theory - Dr Ed Segal.................6 to 9 Industrial Sandpit Event...............................................................................10 to 11 Inaugural Lecture - Professor Helen Wilson..............................................12 to 15 Dynamical Networks - Dr Ewelina Zatorska...............................................16 to 19 Clifford Lecture………………………………………................................................20 Women in Mathematics & Zero Tolerance...........................................................21 Black Mathematicians Month......................................................................22 to 23 Post Doc & Post Grad Life...........................................................................24 to 25 Stochastic Optimal Control – Dr Iain Smears.............................................26 to 29 Singapore Summit........................................................................................30 to 31 IUTAM Symposium - “Wind Waves”............................................................32 to 33 Chalkdust......................................................................................................34 to 35 Provost Teaching Award & Choir…………….......................................................36 Departmental Colloquium.....................................................................................37 Prize Awards..........................................................................................................38 PhD Awards............................................................................................................39 Promotions.............................................................................................................40 New Staff……………...............................................................................................41 Obituary - Professor Susan Brown ............................................................42 to 43 JJ Sylvester Scholarship & Alumni......................................................................44 3 DE MORGAN ASSOCIATION DINNER De Morgan Association Dinner 2017 For many maths and science communication projects, I am just a passive consumer, moving The New Challenge of from one page to the next one in just a few Communicating Maths seconds, looking for the most attractive graph or catchy title. Rafael Prieto Curiel - PhD Student, But the experience is radically different when I UCL am an active part of the project. I remember the first time I read a printed article with my name on Perhaps the biggest difference between previous it or sharing on Facebook the post that I wrote generations and millennials is that we, the or the graph that I created. It might have been a millennials, were born and educated in a world tiny contribution, but it was my contribution after saturated with different resources. Have you ever all. And that, I think, is the secret with millennials. wondered how to solve a stochastic differential It is being able to say, to write, to express and equation? I have, and I found more than 4,000 to become an active part of a ‘something’ that videos on YouTube teaching me how to solve makes the project not only more interesting and them: I could spend more than 82 days watching memorable but, more importantly, more likely to every single video there is. What is a hyperbolic engage us Yes, there are thousands of fancy surface? There are more than 50,000 links on videos on YouTube, but I have never been part of the internet that explain what they are and how any of them. to construct them. There are dozens of free apps for my phone about fluid dynamics and I am not The way to engage millennials is not by providing sure which one to download. Fancy videos on the us with yet another resource. The impact of the internet, ready for me to play, pause and rewind, extra article or the new video that adds to the as many times as I want, waiting for me to see thousands that are already out there, lasts, at and listen to a Fields medallist talking about her least for the viewers, perhaps a few hours. The research, are already a common thing. Why even way to engage millennials is by providing us bother going to lectures or to a seminar if a link, with space. We created Chalkdust around that a video or an app can explain a concept, perhaps idea: the greatest impact that an article has will just as well as