This is the first in a proposed series of regular news bulletins concerning new developments and noteworthy activities of staff and students and visitors in the Mathematics Department at the University of Auckland.
Within the Department are two units which operate with a certain degree of autonomy: the Applied & Computational Mathematics Unit, and the Mathematics Education Unit. Also some staff are actively involved in the recently established Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (a joint venture involving the Computer Science and Mathematics Departments of the Universities of Auckland and Waikato) and the Mathematical Biology Research Unit (a joint venture involving the University and AgResearch).
The Department has particular research strength in algebra, combinatorics, complex analysis, differential equations and mathematical modelling, functional analysis and operator theory, history of mathematics, numerical analysis, and topology.
Several postgraduate students were engaged in research projects over the summer, with support from the Department. Some took part in the summer workshop on solvable models in statistical mechanics at Tolaga Bay, and a workshop on algebra, geometry and topology at the Australian National University in Canberra:
"Six of us, (Robyn Curtis, Chris Heath, Elliot Lawes, John MacCormick, Brian van Dam, and Cameron Walker) battled all manner of insects to attend the ANU Workshop on Algebra, Topology and Geometry in January. We shattered previous all-time personal records for lectures attended in one week, peaking at as much as 26 over five days. Distressed by the unprecedented influx of Kiwi mathematicians, Paul Keating declared an election (subsequently lost) while we were there, but we had more important things on our minds: highlights included outstanding courses on Representation Theory (Jackie Rammage, Newcastle) and Quantum Groups (Arun Ram, Sydney), and the Character Table in Burgmann College Bar. The conference was thoroughly worthwhile and, as it promises to be an annual event, is highly recommended to any students or staff who may wish to attend in future years (except that it looks like next year's one might be on Stats)."
University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarships were awarded this year to Christopher Heath, Rowan Killip, John MacCormick and Rachel Weir. Also a University of Auckland Masters Scholarship was awarded to Emily Lane. In addition, Department Masters Scholarships to Robyn Curtis and Louise Parsons, and Faculty of Science Fees Scholarships to Nicholas Graham, Louise Parsons, Matthew Tearle, Steven Taylor and Ieuan Wickham.
In addition there has been a rationalisation of papers offered at Honours/Masters level.
A limited review of applied mathematics teaching was conducted in December 1995, and the reviewer's report is currently under consideration.
A proposal has been put forward for a new Faculty of Information Science, consisting of the Departments of Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, and part of the Department of Management Science & Information Systems, with possible joint membership by the Department of Engineering Science.
The lectureship vacancy caused by the retirement of the late Ken Ashton is currently being advertised, with closing date in May. Further details are available on the Department's web pages: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/.
Lectureships were offered in 1995 to Drs Rod Gover (differential operators) and Shayne Waldron (approximation theory). Rod currently holds a QEII Fellowship in Australia, and Shayne a postdoctoral fellowship at the Technion in Haifa (Israel), and both are expected to take up their appointments in 1997/98.
Drs Warren Moors and Mark Wilson have been awarded New Zealand Science & Technology postdoctoral fellowships to work in the Department for the next two years.
Prof. Marston Conder has become the Head of Department, for a 3-year term from December 1995. Sabrina Johnston has joined the secretarial office, and a further half-time secretarial appointment is pending. A former student Andrew Hill has been appointed to a temporary lectureship for 1996, following completion of his PhD thesis at the University of Canterbury.
Ms Bridget Jones, deputy principal of Parua Bay School (Whangarei), has been awarded a teacher fellowship by the Royal Society of New Zealand to spend six months from April 1996 working with Dr Mike Thomas in the Department. Her aim is to identify, evaluate and disseminate information to teachers about practical uses of calculators and computers which would be advantageous in New Zealand's primary mathematics classrooms.
Next year's summer workshop will take place once again at Tolaga Bay, from 3-11 January 1997, with the theme of hyperbolic groups and group actions on hyperbolic 2- and 3-manifolds.
A joint meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Mathematical Societies will be hosted by the University of Auckland the week 7-11 July 1997.
Following the MERGA (Maths Education Research Group of Australasia) conference the same week in Rotorua, a meeting of the Bridging Maths Network of Australasia will be hosted by the Mathematics Education Unit here in Auckland.
John Butcher has very kindly donated to the University of Allahabad (India) part of his personal library consisting of copies of Mathematical Reviews and some other books and periodicals. These have been supplemented by other staff donations as part of an initiative by Dr Ganesh Dixit, and shipped to India with financial support from the Dean of Science, Prof. Ralph Cooney.
John Butcher and Marston Conder have been appointed to the Marsden Fund advisory panel for the Mathematical & Information Sciences. Marston Conder is convenor of that panel, and is now a member of the Marsden Fund Committee.
Bruce Calvert is on leave at Stony Brook (U.S.A.) where he is engaged in research on unicursal networks. He will talk at the conferences in St Louis and Athens.
Marston Conder took up a Claude McCarthy Fellowship in December 1995, to travel to Spain for joint research with colleagues at the UNED in Madrid, and to Singapore, where he was a plenary speaker at the First Asian Technology Conference in Mathematics.
Colin Fox spent most of November 1995 on the sea ice near Inaccesible Island 30 km from Scott Base, continuing his research on dynamics of sea ice in the Ross Sea, and subsequently visited Clarkson University (New York) to continue research with Prof. John Dempsey.
Lynne Gilmore and Alastair McNaughton, Senior Tutors at the Tamaki campus, have been promoted within the Senior Tutor scale.
In February Ivan Reilly organised a Forum for ideas on teaching, with speakers Marston Conder, Chris Wild, Jill Ellis, Bill Barton, Greg Oates and Philip Sharp.
Paul Bonnington & Charles Little, The Foundations of Topological Graph Theory (Springer Verlag), 1995.
S-L. Qiu and M. K. Vamanamurthy, Sharp estimates for complete elliptic integrals, SIAM Journal of Mathematical Analysis 27 (1996), 823-834.
Mark C. Wilson, Primeness of the enveloping algebra of a Cartan type Lie superalgebra, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 124 (1996), 383-387.