NZMS Research Award
This annual award was instituted in 1990 to foster mathematical research in New Zealand and to recognise excellence in research carried out by New Zealand mathematicians.
The Research Award for 2012 was presented at the NZMS Colloquium dinner at Wharerata (Palmerston North Massey campus) to Ben Martin of Auckland University for his outstanding and broad contributions to algebra including the application of geometric invariant theory to algebraic groups, the geometry of spherical buildings, and the representation growth of groups; and to Tom ter Elst of Auckland University for his deep and sustained contributionsto the analysis and understanding of elliptic operators, and associated evolution processes. Especially notable are his contributions to Riesz transforms, the treatment of operators on Lie groups, and outstanding recent work on degenerate operators.
This award is based on mathematical research published in the last five calendar years. Candidates must have been residents of New Zealand for the last three years. Nominations and applications should include the following: name and affiliation of candidate; statement of general area of research; names of two persons willing to act as referees; a list of books and/or research articles published in the last five calendar years; two copies of the each of the five most significant publications selected from the list above; a clear statement of how much of any joint work is due to the candidate, and a citation, of maximum 40 words, summarizing the mathematical research underlying the application.
NZMS Early Career Award
This award was instituted in 2006 to reward early career New Zealand mathematicians.
The Early Career Award for 2012 was presented at the NZMS Colloquium dinner at Wharerata (Palmerston North Massey campus) to Mark Holmes of Auckland University, for early career excellence which has seen him rapidly become a world expert in the theory of random walks, and in the analysis of high-dimensional models in statistical physics.
Criteria for eligibility are the same as for the Marsden Fund Fast-Start grants. Essentially, this means applicants must be within seven years of confirmation of PhD with an allowance made for extenuating circumstances. The candidate will be judged on their best three papers and a two-page CV. The papers should be published or in press. In cases of joint authorship, a clear statement of the mathematical contribution of the candidate should be made. The candidate will have completed a significant part of their research within New Zealand. They would also normally be expected to be a member of the NZMS. Candidates will also provide a Citation, of maximum 40 words, summarizing the mathematical research underlying the application. It is recommended that self-applicants approach a colleague to write this Citation.
For each award, a judging panel shall be appointed by the NZMS Council. No person shall receive the award more than once. The award consists of a certificate including an appropriate citation of the awardee’s work, and will be presented (if at all possible) at the New Zealand Mathematical Society Colloquium Dinner.
To be considered for the awards for 2013, all nominations and applications should be sent by 13 July 2013 to the NZMS President:
NZMS Aitken Prize (Student Prize)
The Society offers a prize for the best contributed talk by a student at the annual New Zealand Mathematics Colloquium.
This prize is known as the Aitken Prize, in honour of the New Zealand born mathematician Alexander Craig Aitken, and was offered for the first time at the 1995 Colloquium held in conjunction with the Aitken Centenary Conference at the University of Otago.
The winners in 2012 were Stefanie Hittmeyer and Jennifer Creaser of the University of Auckland.
The prize consists of a cheque for NZ$500, accompanied by a certificate.
Entrants for the prize must be enrolled (or have been enrolled) for a degree in Mathematics at a university or other tertiary institution in New Zealand in the year of the award. During the Colloquium, they give a talk on a topic in any branch of the mathematical sciences.
A judging panel is appointed by the NZMS Council, and makes recommendations to the NZMS President and Vice-President for the prize. Normally the prize will be awarded to one person, but in exceptional circumstances the prize may be shared, or no prize may be awarded.
Entrants should indicate their willingness to be considered for the prize on the Colloquium registration form.
See also:
Recipients of the Research Award
| 1991 | John Butcher | For establishing new fundamental connections between analytic stability properties and algebraic properties of numerical methods for the solution of nonlinear differential equations; for implementing new methods; and for an outstanding monograph on Runge-Kutta and general linear methods. |
| 1991 | Rob Goldblatt | For outstanding work in generalisations and applications of modal logic, including four books displaying a remarkable mastery of diverse aspects of mathematics from programming to space-time geometry. |
| 1992 | Rod Downey | For penetrating and prolific investigations that have made him a leading expert in many aspects of recursion theory, effective algebra and complexity. |
| 1992 | Vernon Squire | For major contributions to the science of ocean wave-ice interaction, ranging from the theoretical and mathematical to the experimental and practical aspects, that have made him the leading consultant in this field |
| 1993 | Marston Conder | For research exhibiting insight and originality in solving problems in algebra and combinatorics, in which, by his outstanding skills in machine computation, he has demonstrated the effectiveness of the computer when guided by real intelligence. |
| 1994 | Gaven Martin | For fundamental contributions in analysis, especially in complex analysis, requiring a careful and inventive blending of algebraic, analytic, and topological ideas, with applications in diverse areas ranging from differential equations, through hyperbolic geometric to low-dimensional topology. |
| 1995 | Vladimir Pestov | For his creative and ingenious research in areas ranging from topological groups and Lie theory to the nonstandard analysis of superspace, in which he has solved long-standing open problems as well as demonstrating his breadth and depth of understanding and a gift for elegant and colourful exposition. |
| 1995 | Neil Watson | For an outstanding series of research articles on harmonic functions and potential theory, in which he has introduced new ideas and tools, and deep analyses, that have resulted in new and improved approaches to classical theorems and led to their generalisation to more abstract situations. |
| 1996 | Mavina Vamanamurthy | For his prolific and far-reaching work in analysis and topology, especially for his contributions to the theory of quasiconformal mappings and special functions; contributions that are characterized by both analytic ingenuity and geometric insight. |
| 1996 | Geoff Whittle | For his work on matroids and other combinatorial structures, in which he has contributed fruitful ideas and found beautiful new results; placing him in the forefront of recent workers on difficult problems of matroid representation. |
| 1997 | Peter Lorimer | For a lifetime of achievements in mathematical research, especially for his contributions to the application of group theory in geometry and combinatorics, and to the structure and classification of finite projective planes. |
| 1998 | Jianbei An | For his contributions to the study of modular representations of groups, in which he has established his leading expertise through a combination of deep understanding, ingenuity and technical skill. |
| 1999 | Mike Steel | For his fundamental contributions to the mathematical understanding of phylogeny, demonstrating a capacity for hard creative work in combinatorics and statistics and an excellent understanding of the biological implications of his results. |
| 2000 | Graham Weir | For his wide-ranging in-depth contributions to applied mathematical modelling covering a diverse range of phenomena including geosciences, structure of materials, corrosion theory, and the flow of granular material. |
| 2001 | Warren Moors | For his impressive body of interconnected research work on the geometry and topology of Banach spaces, related questions of set-theoretic topology and especially non-smooth analysis and optimization where a number of deep insights of a foundational nature have been achieved. |
| 2002 | Bakhadyr Khoussainov | For his contributions to computable model theory and the theory of automatic structures. |
| 2003 | Rod Gover | For highly original contributions in conformal differential geometry, that has led to the solution of some outstanding and difficult problems. |
| 2004 | Eamonn O'Brien | For outstanding achievements in using computation, backed up by deep algebraic theory, to solve long-standing and difficult problems in group theory. |
| 2005 | James Sneyd | For extensive and celebrated contributions in mathematical biology, demonstrating approaches that combine originality with biological realism. |
| 2005 | Robert McLachlan | For creative, pioneering work leading to deep advances in the theory of geometric numerical integration, and its application in the study of dynamical systems. |
| 2006 | Mick Roberts | For his pioneering and practical work in Mathematical Epidemiology, his development of realistic physiologically based models of the incidence and spread of infectious diseases and his work on parasite transmission on pasture, all of which has attracted international recognition. |
| 2006 | Robert Aldred | For his leading work in Combinatorics and Graph Theory. In particular his near complete solution of the vertex colouring/edge partition problem, the characterisation of regular graphs which admit at most one 2-factor as well as his recent work on the Path Partition Conjecture from the early 80s by resolving (in the negative) a strong form of this conjecture. |
| 2007 | Ernie Kalnins | For his wide ranging, prolific and significant contributions to mathematics, especially in his research on symmetries of partial differential equations, separable coordinates and superintegrable systems. |
| 2008 | Mike Hendy | For his innovative mathematical approach to molecular ecology and evolution which has transformed the field. His seminal work on the Hadamard transform—used to separate out pertinent signals in evolutionary data—is now an integral part of phylogenetic software internationally and has contributed to the solution of several fundamental problems |
| 2009 | André Nies | This award recognises André Nies’s special creativity and highly influential contributions in the area of mathematical logic and in particular its application to questions of computability, complexity, and randomness. |
| 2010 | Charles Semple | This award recognises Charles Semple’s landmark contributions to combinatorics, and in particular matroid theory, as well as leading work in phylogenetics and computational biology. |
| 2011 | Shaun Cooper | This award recognises Shaun's sustained generation of significant and original contributions to number theory, particularly in the areas of elliptic functions, theta functions, and modular forms. |
| 2012 | Ben Martin | This reward recognises Ben Martin's outstanding and broad contributions to algebra including the application of geometric invariant theory to algebraic groups, the geometry of spherical buildings, and the representation growth of groups. |
| 2012 | Tom ter Elst | This reward recognises Tom ter Elst for his deep and sustained contributions to the analysis and understanding of elliptic operators, and associated evolution processes. |
Recipients of the Early Career Award
| 2007 | Noam Greenberg | For his discovery of new natural definable classes which capture the dynamics of constructions arising from computability theory, his studies of real-valued measures on the continuum and his use of delicate inductive arguments to exhibit links between high compressibility and low computational power. |
| 2007 | Catherine McCartin | For her fundamental contributions to the development of efficient algorithms for computational problems in a variety of areas, and for her development of theoretical frameworks for parameterized counting problems and for parameterized approximation problems. |
| 2008 | Barbara Holland | For her groundbreaking work in interpreting information of historical and biological importance in comparisons of genetic sequence data, and for her pioneering development of phylogenetic networks that succeeded where simple optimisation models failed in identifying conflicts and in unmasking the more interesting biological evidence. |
| 2009 | Stephen Marsland | For outstanding work in many areas of computational and applied mathematics, including self-organizing networks, machine learning, image registration, and generalized Euler equations. |
| 2010 | Mihály Kovács | For his innovative research in the field of stochastic partial differential equations, particularly their numerical approximation. |
| 2011 | Claire Postlethwaite | The award recognises Claire's enormous progress in applying mathematics to the study of animal movement, and for her development of fundamental ideas in applied dynamical systems. |
| 2012 | Mark Holmes | For rapidly becoming a world expert in the theory of random walks, and in the analysis of high-dimensional models in statistical physics. |
Recipients of the Aitken Prize
| 1995 | Chris Stephens | Canterbury | Global optimisation requires global information |
| 1996 | Anton Raviraj | Massey | Gauss's equation and Backlund transformations |
| 1996 | Thomasin Smith | Massey | On arithmetic degree theory |
| 1997 | Robyn Curtis | Auckland | Subgraphs of hypercubes with no small cycles |
| 1997 | Louise Parsons | Auckland | |
| 1998 | Charles Semple | Victoria | Excluded minors for matroid representability |
| 1999 | Britta Basse | Canterbury | Mathematical modelling for conservation: predator control via secondary poisoning |
| 1999 | Jamie Sneddon | Auckland | Domination conditions for tournaments |
| 2000 | Barbara Holland | Massey | Median networks: A visual representation of ancient Adelie penguin DNA |
| 2000 | Patrick Rynhart | Massey | Static liquid bridges |
| 2000 | Sivajah Somasundaram | Waikato | Cover semi-complete topological groups |
| 2001 | Brian van Dam | Auckland | The construction method of resolutions and Dowker spaces |
| 2002 | Sivajah Somasundaram | Waikato | Some recent results concerning weak Asplund spaces |
| 2003 | Cynthia Wang | Massey | Modelling a plate of arbitrary shape in infinitely deep water using a higher order method |
| 2004 | Joanne Mann | Massey | To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? |
| 2005 | Amanda Elvin | Massey | The role of gap junctions in a neural field model |
| 2005 | Elan Gin | Auckland | Calcium waves and buffers |
| 2006 | Kevin Byard | Massey | Applications of qualified residue difference sets |
| 2007 | Peter Humphries | Canterbury | A basis exchange property for matroids |
| 2007 | Ratneesh Suri | Massey | A real options approach to fisheries |
| 2008 | Mareike Fischer | Canterbury | Curious properties of Maximum Parsimony in estimating evolutionary trees and ancestral sequence states |
| 2009 | Shannon Ezzat | Canterbury | Representation growth of the Heisenberg group over quadratic integers |
| 2009 | Michael Smith | Auckland | Vibration of floating and submerged elastic plates |
| 2010 | Rachael Tappenden | Canterbury | Extensions of compressed sensors |
| 2011 | Edoardo Persichetti | Auckland | Coding theory and cryptography:New perspectives |
| 2012 | Stefanie Hittmeyer | Auckland | Untangling Wild Chaos |
| 2012 | Jennifer Creaser | Auckland | The Lorentz System Near the Loss of the Foliation Condition |