Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter News in Asia Pacific Region News from Australia Firstly, the US National Academy of Sciences elected Hugh Possingham as a Foreign Associate at its recent Professor Nalini Joshi is Made an Officer of the Order Annual Meeting. Foreign associates are non-voting of Australia members of the Academy, elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in In the Queen’s Birthday Honours, original research. Professor Nalini Joshi is made an Officer of the Order of Australia for Secondly, he has been appointed Chief Scientist with distinguished service to mathemat- The Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s largest ical science and tertiary education conservation groups. as an academic, author and research- er, to professional societies, and as a Hugh Possingham completed his Applied Mathematics role model and mentor of young mathematicians. Honours at The University of Adelaide in 1984. After attaining a Rhodes Scholarship he completed a PhD at Nalini Joshi holds a PhD and MA from Princeton Oxford University in 1987. Postdoctoral research University in Applied Mathematics and a BSc (Hons) periods followed at Stanford University and ANU (as from the University of Sydney. She has held lecturing an ARC QEII Fellow). He was elected to The Australian positions and fellowships at ANU, UNSW, and the Academy of Science in 2005. His prizes include Fenner University of Adelaide, as well as visiting positions at medal, Australian Mathematical Society medal, two institutions including Princeton, Kyoto, Manchester Eureka prizes. and the Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University. In 2002, she returned His laboratory uses mathematical and statistical tools to the University of Sydney to take up the Chair of to solve problems in ecology and conservation. The Applied Mathematics and became the first female recent research successes include: producing the soft- mathematician to hold a Chair there. She was awarded ware that rezoned the Great Barrier Reef, a new theory the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship in of optimal monitoring, advances in metapopulation 2012. theory, tests of spatial population models, decision support tools for fire, weed and pest management, Nalini’s research interests lie in non-linear differential protocols for optimal monitoring and decision support and difference equations, with a particular focus on for setting global conservation priorities. asymptotic methods. She develops mathematical methods to study solutions of integrable systems, which Frank Robert de Hoog Awarded the ANZIAM Medal arise as universal models in physics, such as the Painleve equations. Currently, Nalini is creating a geometric Frank Robert de Hoog is awarded the ANZIAM framework to reveal properties of critical solutions of (Australia and New Zealand Industrial and Applied nonlinear models that reflect universal structures in Mathematics) medal for his contributions to applied, physical models. computational and industrial mathematical research. His contributions to ANZIAM have had a significant Honours for Hugh Possingham impact especially in the development of the student support scheme. Professor Hugh Possingham’s sustained, top-level leadership and Frank de Hoog commenced his studies at the University research contributions in Mathe- of Western Australia in 1966 and graduated with first matics and Ecology have very class honours in Mathematics in 1970. He was awarded recently been recognised with two the Australian Mathematical Society’s Medal in 1988. significant honours. He has been working at CSIRO’s Division of Mathe- matics and Statistics. His success at research has been 60 December 2016, Volume 6 No 2 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter recognised by his fairly rapid promotion to a Chief of Arts (Economics) in 2002, a Bachelor of Mathematics Research Scientist position on the basis of scientific and Statistics in 2003, a Graduate Certificate in Higher merit, and his recent appointment as CSIRO Fellow. Education in 2006 and his PhD in Mathematics in 2007. There are many highlights in the research that Frank After a year as a post-doctoral research fellow in the has undertaken during his more than 35 years with the Mathematics Institute, The University of Warwick, CSIRO. Some, but not all, significant examples include: Joshua went to the University of Cambridge as a (i) Laplace Transform Inversion, (ii) Smoothing Spline Zukerman Junior Research Fellow at King’s College Optimisation, (iii) Fast Methods for Toeplitz Matrices (October 2007 to March 2010). In March 2010 he joined and etc. the School of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Adelaide, as a Lecturer. He was promoted to Senior It is acknowledged that Frank played a key role, along Lecturer in 2013 and to Associate Professor in 2015. with others, in the successful establishment of the Mathematics-in-Industry Study Group Meetings, Joshua has accrued an impressive list of accomplish- which are now an important part of the R&D image of ments. Over the last five years he has had three ANZIAM. The first Study Group Meeting was organised successful ARC Discovery Projects (one as a sole by the then CSIRO Division of Mathematics and applicant), a Royal Society International Exchanges Statistics, with Noel Barton and Frank playing lead roles Scheme grant, and an NHMRC grant for the Centre of along with strong support from Kerry Landman and Research Excellence in Policy Relevant Infectious Terry Speed. Frank has been a regular attendee since Disease Simulation and Mathematical Modelling. He 1976 invariably giving a talk. He was a key organiser was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship for 2013–2017. for the meeting in Merimbula in 1984. As an extension He is also a contributor to the Data to Decisions of his strong support for students in CSIRO, in terms Cooperative Research Centre established in 2014 of student support schemes and internship programs, through which he has a project grant. In 2013 he Frank garnered financial support for ANZIAM from received an Australian Institute of Policy and Science CSIRO on the understanding that the funds would be Young Tall Poppy Award. exclusively used to support student participation at ANZIAM. This has turned into the CSIRO-ANZIAM For his many creative and significant contributions in Student Support Scheme and has become a feature of Applied Mathematics, Joshua Ross is awarded the 2016 AustMS conferences as well as those of ANZIAM. Thus, J H Michell Medal. for all his contributions, he is awarded ANZIAM medal for 2016. Australian Academy of Science Fellows Joshua Ross Awarded J H Michell Medal On May 23, 2016, the Australian Academy of Science announced the election of 21 new Fellows for their The 2016 J H Michell Medal is outstanding contributions to science and scientific awarded to Associate Professor research. Among the 21 Fellows, there are two scientists Joshua Ross from the University of whose interdisciplinary research include applied Adelaide for his significant contri- mathematics. butions to methodology in Applied Mathematics and, through its appli- Professor Toby Walsh cation, to conservation biology and public health policy. The J H Michell Medal is awarded by ANZIAM in Professor Toby Walsh of UNSW honour of John Henry Michell to an outstanding new Australia is elected as a new Fellow researcher, within 10 years of their PhD, who has for his important scientific contri- carried out distinguished research in applied and/or butions in three closely related industrial mathematics, and where a significant propor- areas: Artificial Intelligence, con- tion of the research work has been carried out in straint programming and computa- Australia and/or New Zealand. tional social choice. He has been a pioneer in Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, building Joshua completed his undergraduate and postgraduate on ideas from fields including statistical physics, education at the University of Queensland: a Bachelor economics and game theory to study many complex December 2016, Volume 6 No 2 61 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter and challenging optimisation problems such as sched- MS in Animal Breeding and Statistics from Cornell uling and vehicle routing. (1986) and a PhD in Quantitative Genetics from the University of Edinburgh (1989). She moved to Australia Toby Walsh is a leading researcher in Artificial Intel- in 2005 to join the Queensland Institute of Medical ligence. He was recently named in the inaugural Research where she established and led the Psychiatric Knowledge Nation 100, the one hundred “rock stars” Genetics Laboratory and joined QBI in 2011. She held of Australia’s digital revolution. He is Guest Professor Australian Research Council ARC Future Fellowship at TU Berlin, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at (2010–2013). UNSW and leads the Algorithmic Decision Theory group at Data61, Australia’s Centre of Excellence for ICT Research. News from China Toby Walsh received an MA degree in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics from the University of The 16th Annual Conference of Asia Pacific Network Cambridge and a MSc and PhD degree in Artificial of Science & Technology Centres Opens in Beijing Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. He is noted for his work in constraint programming and The 16th Annual Conference of Asia Pacific Network propositional satisfiability. of Science & Technology Centres (also referred to as ASPAC 2016) opened at China Science and Technology Professor Naomi Ruth Wray Museum (CSTM) on May 18. Naomi Wray