History of NSW ANZIAM - 2012-present

By Mark Nelson

Link to the main page about the NSW ANZIAM branch.

A quick overview

The Sydney years: 2012-2016

At the 2011 branch meeting over half of the NSW delegates came from universities in Sydney (7 from 13). However, at earlier meetings the attendence from universities in Sydney had been woeful! In 2010 only one delegate from a total of twelve NSW delegates came from a Sydney institution. In 2009 the figures were zero from thirteen, in 2008 zero from seven, in 2007 one from eight and in 2003 three from thirteen! (The available records do not allow estimates for the meetings in 2004 and 2006).

As people from Sydney are such poor travellers, it was decide to hold the 2012 branch meeting in Sydney. This started the "Sydney years" which saw three branch meetings organised in Sydney (2012, 2013 & 20152015). There were two years with no meetings organised: 2014 & 2016.

A notable development in this `era' was the decision by the NSW branch to supply supporting funding for meetings in addition to the branch meeting. The possibility of organising two branch meetings a year, a "winter" and a "summer" meeting, had been discussed a number of times. However, none of the proposed "winter" meetings had ever eventuated. Probably because the question "who would organise the event" had a null answer. So rather than' organising a second branch meeting, the branch started to support other meetings. The usual proviso for this funding was that the branch be recognised as an "official" funder of the even. The NSW ANZIAM branch has supported `secondary' meetings in: 2013, 2015, and 2016. As the branch did not organise a meeting in 2016, supporting the secondary meeting was the only activity carried out by the branch in that year.

(It was not only the NSW branch that was considering organising two meetings a year. The SA branch were also keen to organise two meetings. Or at least at the ANZIAM meetings they said that they were keen to organise more than one meeting a year...)

Back to the provinces: 2017-2018

Having organised three meetings in five years (one at UNSW, 2012, one at USN, 2013, and one at the Sydney campus of UNC, 2015) the Sydneysiders ran out of puff and it was time for the provinces to pull their weight. (In both 2014 and 2016 the ACT branch had promised, and failed, to organise the joint meeting). In 2017 a one-day branch meeting was organised at UOW, the ACT branch having failed to fulfill a commitment to organise the joint meeting. In 2018, a two-day meeting was organised at UNC.

The Sydney years: 2012

During 2012 the NSW ANZIAM branch co-organised a joint NSW/ACT mini-meeting. Actually, A/P John Murray (UNSW) very capable organised the meeting without any support from the Executive! The meeting was held at the University of New South Wales, Sydney on the afternoon of Thursday 22nd and the morning of Friday 23rd November. The meeting was held in the School of Mathematics and Statistics access grid room, with presentation facilities including a data projector, white board, and document camera. The conference dinner was held on Thursday 23rd November at the Bluesalt Restaurant, Crowne Plaza Hotel Coogee.

In addition to the hire of the facilities the registration fee included: afternoon tea (Thursday), the conference dinner and morning tea (Friday). In addition, accommodation costs for student speakers from outside Sydney were covered by the branch.

Forty-three delegates attended the meeting making it the largest meeting in the period 1999-2012. (The NSW ANZIAM branch does not have any details on its history prior to 1999). There were 34 delegates from NSW (UNSW 17, UOW 7, UNC 4, USN 3, UWS 2 & UTS 1), 8 from the ACT (UNSW-Canberra 7, ANU 1) and 1 from overseas (Belgium).

There were twenty-six talks, including sixteen from students - there were a total of 17 students at the meeting. Three records were sit at this meeting: the highest number of presentations; the highest number of student presentations and the highest number of student presentations as a percentage of the total number of presentations (72.2%). (As of 22.11.18 these remains the records). There were three invited speakers (another record) who gave talks of thirty minutes duration: A/P Andrew Francis (UWS), A/P Geoff Mercer (ANU) and Professor Natashia Boland (UNC). The other talks were of twenty minutes duration.

Due to the number of talks, the meeting started comparatively early with the first plenary at 10.30 on Thursday morning, with the last talk finishing at 5.30pm - only 90 minutes before the conference dinner. On the second day, talks started at 9am. The final presentation finished at 1pm, followed by lunch.

There were a total of nine talks in the general area of mathematical biology (including epidemiology, evolution, HIV, mathematical medicine, and population biology), four in operations research, three in waves (water waves and solitons) and three in combustion. There were a further seven talks covering a wide range of topics in Applied Mathematics.

The student prize committee consisted of Dr Roslyn Hickson (UNC), Dr Jason Sharples (UNSW-Canberra) and A/P Annette Worthy (UOW). (Roslyn became the first former of the best student presentation, 2007, to serve on the student prize committee). As is now commonplace they had a very difficult job to do due to the high standard of student talks. The prize for the best student talk was given to Ms Lucia-Marie Billie Ganendran, a PhD student from UNSW-Canberra, for her talk "Is seabird survival affected by wind?". Mr Stephen Maher (UNSW) and Mr Wilson Wee, an honours student from UNSW-Canberra, were highly commended for their talks. Lucia-Maria received $200 (cash) and the two highly commendeds $100.

One of the delegates was Dr Greg Doherty, who reminisced about his time as an undergraduate at UNSW in the late 1950s. In particular, he remembered being able to play golf after lectures as at the time part of the current campus was a nine-hole golf course!

The conference finished with a well deserved round of thanks for A/P John Murray for organising the best-ever NSW ANZIAM mini-meeting. (In return John promised that he would not do it next year!)

The annual general meeting of NSW ANZIAM was held on Thursday 22nd November. The following resolutions were made.

  • In the absence of any contested nominations
    • A/P J. Murray (UNSW) was elected president of NSW ANZIAM.
    • A/P M.I. Nelson (UoW) was elected secretary of NSW ANZIAM.
    • A/P M. Wechselberger (USN) was elected treasurer of NSW ANZIAM.
    • Mr Timothy Ling (UTS) was appointed as an ordinary member.

    At the AGM it was anticipated that several additional members would be co-opted onto the committee. (This did not happen!)

  • The new committee made the decision to request $3000 from ANZIAM in 2013 to fund future activities.

(The request for $3000 become part of a very heated debate at the ANZIAM executive meeting. Or was it the ordinary meeting? I don't remember now. Anyhow, there was quite an intense discussion revolving around the function of the NSW and SA branches.).

I am not absolutely certain, but I believe that this was the first NSW branch meeting to have a web-page.

The Sydney years: 2013

2013: The branch meeting

During 2013 the NSW ANZIAM branch co-organised a joint NSW/ACT meeting (not called a mini-meeting on the event's web-page!). The meeting was organised by Dr Sheehan Olver at the University of Sydney, which provided the theatre free of charge to NSW ANZIAM. The meeting started with welcome and registration at 9am (!) on Wednesday 27th November and finished with lunch (1pm) on Thursday 28th November. The conference dinner was held at a local Thai restaurant (probably at Thai Riffic, email from Sheehan Olver. 27.01.2018).

The web page specified that postgraduate students who presented their work would receive free registration, including attendance at the conference dinner. Students from outside of Sydney were eligible to apply for one night's free accommodation in one of the University of Sydney's residential colleges.

Thirty-seven delegates attended the meeting, making it the second largest meeting in the period 1999-2018, with an excellent coverage of participants from the schools of mathematics in New South Wales: UNC, UNSW, UOW, USN, and UWS. Colleagues from ANU and UNSW@CANBERRA provided additional applied mathematics contributions to the meetings.

There were twenty talks: three plenary talks, eleven contributed talks from students and six by academics. (This was the second largest number of talks and the third largest number of student presentations over the period 1999-2013. As of 11th December 2018 it is the third largest number of talks and the fourth largest number of student talks - the meeting in 2015 had both a larger number of talks and a larger number of student talks). The plenary speakers had one hour each to educate their audience, the remaining speakers twenty minutes. There were three invited speakers who gave talks of sixty minutes duration. (This remained the greatest number of invited speakers, tying with the 2012, until the 2018 meeting which had four invited speakers.) The invited speakers were:

  • Professor Nalini Joshi (USN).
    Geometry and Asymptotics.
  • A/P Natalie Thamwattana (UOW).
    Mathematical Modelling in Nanotechnology
  • Professor Stephen Roberts (ANU).
    Modelling the Impact of Floods and Tsunamis on Communities .
There were three sessions, each session started with a presentation by one of the invited speakers (in the order listed above).

The student prize committee consisted Dr Jason Sharples (UNSW, Canberra) and A/P Annette Worthy (UOW). (Jason and Annette became the second and third individuals to judge the best student prize, both served on the 2012 committee). The prize for the best student talk was given to Ms Alexander Hogan (ANU) for her talk on "A mathematical model for respiratory syncytial virus transmission". Mr Matthias Wong (UNSW, Canberra) Mr Austen Erickson (UNSW) were highly commended for their talks.

The branch report presented to the ANZIAM annual meeting states that "Registration and attendance at the conference dinner were also complimentary" (Anonymous, 2014) suggesting that the conference fee was $0 and that this included the conference meal!

At the AGM it was agreed with the ACT branch that the latter would organise the next joint meeting (Anonymous, 2014). However, the ACT branch failed to organise a meeting in 2014. The 2013 meeting was therefore the last of an eight year run in which the NSW ANZIAM branch organised a meeting every year. The first year of this run was the 2006 meeting. (As of 26th November 2018 this is a record for the most consecutive meetings).

2013: Other branch activity

In 2013 the NSW ANZIAM branch contributed $300 towards the cost of running a workshop on Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Solutions held at Charles Sturt University, and organised by Professor Ken Russell.

The Sydney years: 2014

In 2013 the ACT branch offered to organise the 2014 ACT/NSW joint meeting (Anonymous, 2014). However, due to clashes in timing with CTAC (1-3 December, 2014) and the 8th Australia-New Zealand Mathematics Convention (8th-12th December, 2014) it was not possible to find a suitable date.

The ACT & NSW branches resolved that the joint meeting would go ahead in 2015.

It was noted in the report to the ANZIAM AGM that Dr Natalie Thamwattana had requested funding to support a one and a half day Industrial and Applied Mathematics Symposium to be held at the University of Wollongong in July 2015 (Anonymous, 2015). There were to be no registration costs for ANZIAM members or for students. The NSW branch agreed to provide $500 to cover the costs of this meeting and therefore the branch requested "additional funding of $500 so as to be fully support our 2015 branch meeting".

The Sydney years: 2015

2015: The branch meeting

In 2015 the NSW and ACT branches organised a joint meeting at the Sydney CBD branch of Newcastle University (25-26 November 2015). The lecture theatre was provided free of charge to ANZIAM. The organisers of this meeting were Bj\F6rn R\FCffer, Mike Meylan (both UNC) and Jason Sharples (UNSW-Canberra). The conference dinner was held at a local restaurant.

There were twenty-nine delegates from NSW (10 UNSW, 6 UNC, 5 UoW, 4 UTS, 1 ANSTO, 1 MQU, 1 UND, 1 USN), six from the ACT (3 ANU, 3 UNSW-Canberra) and 1 international delegate (Germany) Although the venue was not a maths lecture theatre its central location, only two minutes walk from the train station at Martin Place, allowed a good attendence and was generally well received except by a few complaining Sydney-siders. (Experience suggests that Sydney-siders won't attend branch meetings if they are outside of Sydney.)

The venue came with white boards that were not ideal for presentations, given the shape and size of the room. However, this did not prove to be a problem as all presenters used the overhead visualiser with the white boards being used as required for digressions. Given the central Sydney location, a priority was placed on subsidising student accommodation. Accordingly, lunch was not catered; but with its central location delegates were spoilt for choice.

There were twenty-two talks including three plenaries. The plenary speakers had fifty-five minutes, the other speakers twenty-five minutes. The plenary speakers were:

  • Lars Gr\FCne, University of Bayreuth, Germany.
    On conditions under which receding horizon control delivers approximately optimal solutions.
  • Christopher Poulton, University of Technology Sydney.
    Interactions between sound and light on the nanoscale.
  • Ian H. Sloan, The University of New South Wales.
    What's new in high-dimensional integration? Designing integration rules for applications

The committee for the best student prize was Mike Meylan (UNC), Bj\F6rn R\FCffer (UNC), and Jason Sharples (UNSW,Canberra). (Jason became the first person to judge the best student presentation prize thrice: 2012, 2013 and 2015). The prize for the best student presentation was given to Ms Anna McGann, a PhD student from the University of Newcastle. for her talk "A Fractional Order Infectivity SIR Model". Mr Tom Dryer (UOW) and Mr Matthew Tam (UNC) were highly commended for their talks. Anna received $150, there was no monetary prize for the two students that were highly commended.

The branch report presented to the ANZIAM annual meeting states that "Registration and attendance at the conference dinner were also complimentary" (Anonymous, 2015) suggesting that the conference fee was $0 and that this included the conference meal!

In a break with tradition, "the catering was done by the organisers to keep cost down" (Anonymous, 2015).

(There was no branch meeting in 2005 so no comparison of whom attended in 2005 and 2015).

2015: Other branch activity

In 2015 the branch supported two other meetings. The branch executive agreed to give $500 to support a 1.5 day Industrial and Applied Mathematics Symposium ran in July 2015 to celebrate Professor Jim Hill's 70th birthday. In the first instance the money was to be used to support the attendance at the symposium by student members of NSW ANZIAM. If there were insufficient students attending to spend $500 the money could be used for other purposes.

Following the end of the conference the symposium organisers were asked to provide a brief account of how the money was used. Finally, financial support from NSW ANZIAM was to be acknowledged at the appropriate places.

On Monday 9th November a one-day workshop was organised at the University of Wollongong on the topic of ``Mathematical Modelling in Biology and Medicine''. The NSW ANZIAM branch provided a small amount of money ($75) to subsidise the lunch costs of student speakers from outside the University of Wollongong.

The Sydney years: 2016

Why there was no branch meeting

As the ACT branch had not organised a joint meeting since 2009, they offered at the 2015 AGM to organise the 2016 joint meeting. You may recall that at the AGM in 2013 a similar promise had been made about organising a meeting in 2014. As in 2014, the 2016 joint meeting did not eventuate.

Other branch activity

On Tuesday 29th November 2016 a one-day workshop was organised at the University of Wollongong on the topic of ``Mathematical Modelling in Biology and Medicine''. The NSW ANZIAM branch provided $360.15 to cover the costs of providing lunch to the speakers and afternoon tea for the delegates.

The meeting attracted over sixty registered delegates and a handful of last minute attendees. There were two invited speakers, and an additional fifteen presentations including eleven by students. There were eight presenters from the University of Sydney, five from the University of Wollongong and one each from the Australian National University and the University of Notre Dame.

Back to the provinces: 2017

2017: The branch meeting

As the ACT branch had not organised a joint meeting since 2009, they offered to organise the 2017 meeting. Unfortunately, they were unable to fulfil their commitment. Rather than having a second year pass without a meeting it was decided, at the last moment, to organise a one-day meeting at the University of Wollongong on Tuesday 21st November. The organising committee for the meeting comprised Dr M. Rodrigo and Dr M.I. Nelson (both UoW).

Fourteen delegates from NSW (UoW 10, MQU 4), two from the ACT (UNSW@Canberra 1, CSIRO 1) and one other attended the meeting. The invited speaker was Dr Catherine Penington (Macquarie University) who talked on ``Random movement through a crowd''. (This was the first time since the 2007 meeting, coincidentally also held at UoW, that there had been a single invited speaker at the branch meeting).

In all there were fourteen talks, including four from students. As of today (22.11.18) four is the lowest number of student presentations at a branch meeting. (There were also four student presentations at the meetings in 2001, 2003 and 2004). As a percentage of the total number of presentations (29%) the 2017 NSW ANZIAM branch meeting has the equal joint lowest number of student presentations with the 2001 branch meeting.

The prize for the best student presentation was given to Mr Ben Maldon, a PhD student from the University of Wollongong, who talked on ``Pressing Charges - Analytical Solutions to the Diffusion Model of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells''. Ben received $100 (cash) and a certificate!

The invited speaker was allocated sixty minutes for their presentation. All other talks were of twenty minutes duration, except for the very last presentation by one of the organisers (Dr M.I. Nelson) which was only ten minutes long! (Fun fact?! My first NSW ANZIAM mini-meeting was in 2002. The 2017 mini-meeting was my ninth meeting. However, the 2017 meeting was the first time I gave a presentation!)

The prize for the best student presentation was judged by Dr Bob Anderssen and Dr Catherine Penington. (Bob became the second person to judge the best student prize thrice: 2003, 2009, and 2017). Prior to the announcement of the winner, Bob gave some advice for the students to consider prior to their next presentation:

  • it is very importance to keep to time;
  • it is a mistake to have too much content;
  • avoid talking about mathematics, mathematics and more mathematics;
  • stress the importance/originality of your work;
  • explain clearly what the mathematics is about.
To recap his points, Bob concluded by saying that speakers should spend their time concentrating on what is important in their work not ploughing through technical details.

(Bob had also provided sage advice to the student (?) speakers at the 2003 meeting).

It seemed to this observer that these points had currency wider than the student speakers...

Winner of the Student Prize  (Ben Meldon) with the two judges
     (Dr Bob Anderssen and Dr Catherine Penington), NSW ANZIAM 2017.
Figure. Winner of the Student Prize (Ben Meldon) with the two judges (Dr Bob Anderssen and Dr Catherine Penington), NSW ANZIAM 2017.

At the AGM Professor Thamwattana offered to hold the 2018 branch meeting at the University of Newcastle.

A vote of thanks was given to Dr Mike Meylan, for serving as branch President for four years (2014-2017), and to Professor John Murray, for serving as President for two years (2012-2013) and as Secretary for an additional four years (2014-2017).

2017: Other branch activity

On Friday 24th November 2017 a one-day workshop was organised at the University of Wollongong on the topic of ``Mathematical Modelling in Biology and Medicine''. The NSW ANZIAM branch provided $?? to cover the costs of providing lunch to the speakers and afternoon tea for the delegates. (At the time of writing (23.01.18) the invoice has not been received!)

The meeting attracted fifty-five registered delegates and some last minute attendees. There were three invited speakers, and an additional sixteen presentations which included eleven by students. There were eight presenters from the University of Sydney, six from the University of Wollongong and one each from the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne.

The prize for the best student presentation was judged by the three invited speakers. This was awarded to Ms Timia Osman (Centre for Medical Radiation Physics, UOW) for her presentation on ``Segmentation of lung lesions on 4D-PET/CT images for radiation therapy treatment planning''.

The delegates came from: the University of Wollongong (33), the University of Sydney (11), the University of New South Wales (6), Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District (2), Red Point Artist Association (1), the University of Melbourne (1) and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute (1).

Back to the provinces: 2018

2018: The branch meeting

In 2018 the NSW ANZIAM branch held a two-day meeting at the University of Newcastle City Campus on Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th November. The presentations were held in a very nice modern lecture theatre. This had two screens behind the presenter and screens on the walls to the left and the right. The pews were circular arcs, creating an arena in which the speaker could move into to be surrounded by the audience on two sides. The room arrangement allowed a speaker facing one-half of the audience to see their slides without having to twist their neck. Furthermore, for some of the audience it was more convenient to face straight ahead and see the screen on the opposite wall, rather to orientate towards the screens behind the computer.

Twenty-four delegates attended the meeting: 24 from NSW (UNC 9, UOW 7, UNSW 3, UNE 1, MQU 1), one from the ACT (ANU 1), one from South Australia (UAD 1), and one other attended. The low turn-out from the ACT was attributed to CITAC being organised in Newcastle the following week.

There were four invited speakers (a branch record):

  • Dr Deborah Cromer (UNSW)
    Using Mathematical Modelling to understand HIV reactivation.
  • Dr Elena Levchenko (UNC)
    Statistical mechanical analysis of diffusion kinetics in liquid alloys.
  • Dr Marianito Rodrigo (UOW)
    Revisiting the time-fractional diffusion-wave equation.
  • A/Prof Linda Stals (ANU)
    Multilevel methods for the thin-plate spline saddle point problem.
A/Prof Linda Stals annotated her PDF during the course of their presentation. One of the students, attempting to use the whiteboard during their presentation, unfortunately ended up annotating the projector screen by accident.

In all there were 17 talks (including the plenary presentations), including five from students. The Mercer prize for the best student presentation was given to Mr Benjamin Maldon, a PhD student from the University of Newcastle, who talked on ``Modelling dye-sensitized solar cells by nonlinear diffusion''. (When the NSW and ACT ANZIAM branches hold a joint meeting the prize for the best student presentation is called the Mercer Prize). Ben received a $100 gift voucher. This is the second time that Ben has received the award, the previous time was at the 2017 meeting, making him only the second person to win the best student presentation on two occasions.

The prize for the best student presentation was judged by Dr Maureen Edwards (UOW) and Dr Barry Cox (UAD). Barry won the prize for the best student presentation at the 2006 meeting, making this the second time that a former winner judged the prize.

The registration fee covered afternoon tea (Monday), the conference dinner (but no drinks), morning tea (Tuesday) and lunch (Tuesday). The conference dinner was held in a private room at Scratchleys on the Wharf. The venue not only provided excellent views of Newcastle Harbour but the nicest NSW ANZIAM conference meal that anyone could remember.

The organising committee for the meeting was Professor Natalie Thamwattana (UNC), A/Prof Mark Nelson (UOW), Dr Christopher Lustri (MQU), Dr David Allingham (UNC) and Mrs Juliane Turner (UNC).

Funding for the mini-meeting was provided by NSW ANZIAM, CARMA, and the University of Newcastle.

Downing a few drinks after the end of the branch meeting,
    NSW ANZIAM 2018.
Figure. Downing a few drinks after the end of the branch meeting, NSW ANZIAM 2018. Xiao-ping Lu (UoW), Maureen Edwards (UoW), Barry Cox (UAD), Mike Meylan (UNC), Christopher Lustri (MQU), and Marianito Rodrigo (UoW). Photographer: Natalie Thamwattana (UNC).

2018: NSW ANZIAM AGM

The NSW branch of ANZIAM held its AGM on Monday 19th November, following the final presentation of the day. At the start of the meeting the NSW ANZIAM Chair (Professor Thamwattana) asked A/P Nelson to chair the meeting.

  1. In response to a question as to who was allowed to take part in the meeting, the AGM chair stated that all ANZIAM members who usually reside in NSW are considered to be members of the branch.

    However, all delegates attending the meeting were welcome to attend the AGM (regardless of whether they are members of ANZIAM). However, such persons would not be eligible to vote (if a vote were called). Such persons were asked to contain their disappointment at not being able to vote.

    It was pointed out that non-members of the NSW ANZIAM branch are eligible to stand for election. Indeed, membership of ANZIAM is not required. (However, 50% of the committee must be members of both ANZIAM and the branch).

    In response to a question from the floor, it was noted that the AGM was specifically the AGM of the NSW ANZIAM branch not the ACT ANZIAM branch.

  2. The following were elected onto the executive committee for 2018.

    President Dr David Khoury Kirby Institute, UNSW
    Treasurer Dr Martin Wechselberger USN
    Secretary Dr Christopher Lustri MQU

    Ordinary Committee Members: Dr Elena Levchenko (UNC), Dr Xiao-Ping Lu (UOW), A/Prof Mark Nelson (UOW), Professor Ngamta (Natalie) Thamwattana (UNC).

    Following the election of the new committee the meeting was opened up for discussion.

  3. Dr David Khoury (UNSW) offered to investigate the possibility of holding the 2019 branch meeting at UNSW (possible at the Kirby Institute).

  4. Dr David Khoury (UNSW) announced that he had been nominated for the position of NSW representative on the ANZIAM executive. Although he welcomed questions and suggestions, none were forthcoming.

  5. There was some discussion regarding the anticipated forthcoming code of conduct guidelines which are being developed by the ANZIAM executive. These are expected to be compulsory for all future branch meetings. It was decided that little could be said since the guidelines have not been revealed.

    It is believed that registering for the next NSW ANZIAM branch meeting will be considered to be a de factor acceptance to abide by the guidelines.

  6. A NSW ANZIAM member who was unable to attend the branch meeting had emailed a suggestion that presentations at future meetings be made available over the internet. A lively discussion followed. The following points were made against the suggestion:

    • we want to encourage members to attend the meeting in person to allow for networking and discussion;
    • not all speakers would agree to have their presentations broadcast;
    • the likely interest in viewing such presentations would be very small;
    • a requirement to make presentations available on the internet could restrict the choice of venue.

  7. Professor Natalie Thamwattana (UNC) announced that the 2020 MISG will be run at the University of Newcastle the week before the 2020 ANZIAM meeting (to be held in the Hunter Value). Members of the branch were alerted to the fact that their assistance would be greatly appreciated.

2018: Other branch activity

On Wednesday 28th November 2018 a one-day workshop was organised at the University of Wollongong on the topic of ``Mathematical Modelling in Biology and Medicine''. The NSW ANZIAM branch provided $400 to cover the costs of providing lunch and afternoon tea for the delegates.

The meeting attracted approximately thirty delegates. The atrocious heavy rain (with public warnings not to travel to Wollongong on public transport) undoubtedly deterred a number of of the registered delegates from attending. The shocking weather conditions lead to a request that is unique in my 25+ year history of organising meetings: one of the delegates texted a request for a change of socks, as theirs were soaked through. (I could!) As a consequence of this I am contemplating including a spare pair of socks for all registered delegates in next year's workshop pack. However, it is unclear as to whether this budget item will be considered reasonable by the powers-that-be.

There were three invited speakers, and an additional twelve presentations which included seven by students. There were seven presenters from the University of Wollongong, four from the University of Sydney and two each from the University of New South Wales and the University of Notre Dame.

The prize for the best student presentation was judged by the three invited speakers. This was awarded to Ms Timia Osman (Centre for Medical Radiation Physics, UOW) for her presentation on ``3D probability driven random walk segmentation with automated seed selection for the delineation of PET volumes''. This is the second time that Mia has won the prize.

Analysis of delegates

How many delegates attended how many meetings during the period covered in this article (2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018)? Before we see the data, a word of explanation. This analysis is based upon attendence at the NSW ANZIAM meetings in the stated years. There were no meetings organised in either 2014 or 2016. The maximum possible attendance by any individual is therefore five.

I attended the meetings in 2012, 2015, 2017 & 2018.

Dr Sheehan Olver sent me his list of delegates for the 2013 meeting (27.01.18!). The list contains thirty-four names. In addition I know three people who attended the meeting who are not on the list.

Bj\F6rn R\FCffer sent me a list of registered delegates for the 2015 meeting.

Professor Natalie Thamwattana sent me the list of delegates for the 2018 meeting (November 2018).

Analysis of attendence at NSW ANZIAM meetings for the years: 2012, 2013, (2014), 2015, (2016), 2017 & 2018. There were no meetings organised in 2014 or 2016.
Number of NSW ANZIAM meetings attended Frequency
1 94
2 17
3 7
4 2
5 0

The seven people to attend three meetings are: Maureen Edwards (2013, 2017, 2018) Quoc Thong le Gai (2012, 2013, 2015), John Murray (2012, 2013, 2015), Carl Ormerod (2013, 2015, 2018), Jason Sharples (2012, 2013, 2015), Ngamta (Natalie) Thamwattana (2013, 2017, 2018), and Annette Worthy (2012, 2013, 2017).

The two people to attend four meetings are: Mike Meylan (2012, 2013, 2015, 2018) and Mark Nelson (2012, 2015, 2017, 2018).

Acknowledgements

Dr Peter Johnston sent me the minutes for the 2012 ANZIAM AGM (16.11.2018).

Dr Sheehan Olver sent me his list of delegates for the 2013 meeting (27.01.18!).

Bj\F6rn R\FCffer sent me a list of registered delegates for the 2015 meeting.

Professor Natalie Thamwattana sent me the list of delegates for the 2018 meeting (November 2018).

Missing information

I believe that I have everything! Of course, the records of who attended each branch meeting may not be 100% accurate.

Footnotes

There are no footnotes.

Version

  • Version 1.0. As was the case with part four of this series, I have a plethora of information about the activities of the Sydney/NSW branch of ANZIAM over the time period of this article.

    • Programs for the meetings in: 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2018. (This is a complete set as there were no meetings in either 2014 or 2016).
    • The relevant issues of the Australian Mathematical Society Gazette.
    • The minutes and papers of the ANZIAM executive committee (2012).
    • The minutes and papers of the ANZIAM AGM (2012-2018).
    • I attended the meetings in 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2018. (A more thoroughly analysis of the notes I took at these meetings might reveal long-forgotten points of interest (?). But I have not had time to do so. Maybe when I retire...)
    • It has been helpful that I have tried to write an account of events as they happened, since things which I knew and recorded in the past I have now forgotten!

    • This version was finished on 17th January 2019.

Abbreviations

ADFA Australian Defence Force Academy
ANSTO Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
ANU Australian National University
ANZIAM Australia and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics
ANZIAM is a division of the Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS).
BOU Bond University
CARMA Computer-Assisted Research Mathematics and its Applications
CITAC Computational Techniques and Applications
CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
CSU Charles Sturt university
DSTO Defence Science and Technology Organisation
MISG Mathematics in Industry Study Group
MQU Macquarie University
UAD University of Adelaide
UNC University of Newcastle
UND University of Notre Dame
UNE University of New England
UNSW University of New South Wales
UNSW at ADFA University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy
UNSW, Canberra University of New South Wales, Canberra
UoW University of Wollongong
USN University of Sydney
UTS University of Technology, Sydney
UWS University of Western Sydney

Bibliography

This shows the sources that I have used to write this document. (Not necessarily very accurate, as I don't always remember to update things).

  1. Anonymous (2014). NSW ANZIAM Meeting 2013. 39th AGM of ANZIAM (04.02.14) Item 7c.
  2. Anonymous (2015). NSW ANZIAM Report 2014. 39th AGM of ANZIAM (03.02.15) Item 7c.
  3. Anonymous (2016). NSW ANZIAM Report 2015. 40th AGM of ANZIAM (09.02.16) Item 7c.
  4. Anonymous (2017). NSW ANZIAM Report 2016. 41st AGM of ANZIAM (07.02.17) Item 7c.
  5. ANZIAM Executive Committee. 2012.

    Contains the branch report that is tabled at the AGM and is unlikely to contain anything else. It appears that sometimes I did not keep the agenda for the AGM, but I kept the minutes for the executive meeting.

  6. Annual General Meeting of ANZIAM. 37th (2012) — 43rd (2018).

    The branch is supposed to submit a report each year to the ANZIAM executive, which is printed for both the executive meeting and for the ANZIAM AGM. I did not attend the AGMs in 2002-2004. I've listed the reports that appeared under the names of the author's elsewhere in this bibliography.

    It is sometimes useful to read the minutes of the previous general meeting. Finally, it can be instructive to read the ACT branch report.

  7. Australian Mathematical Society Gazette. Volume 37 (2010) to 45 (2018).

    A detailed reading of the Gazette might reveal more information about the branch. Due to lack of time I have not examined each issue in detail.

  8. Nelson, M.I.. (2013). Report on NSW ANZIAM 2012. 38th AGM of ANZIAM. (05.02.13) Item 7c.
  9. Nelson, M.I.. (2018). Report on NSW ANZIAM 2017. 43rd AGM of ANZIAM. (06.08.18) Item 7c.
  10. Program. Annual NSW/ACT ANZIAM Meeting. 22 & 23 November 2012.
  11. Program. Annual NSW & ACT ANZIAM Meeting. 27 and 28 November 2013. (Print-out of web page).
  12. Program. ANZIAM NSW/ACT Annual Meeting. 25 & 26 November 2015.
  13. Program. ANZIAM NSW Mini-meeting. 21 November 2017.
  14. Program. NSW-ACT ANZIAM Meeting. 10-20 November 2018.
  15. Sharples, J. ACT Branch of ANZIAM - 2017 Annual Report. 43rd AGM of ANZIAM (06.02.18) Item 7a.


Updated: 01 Apr 2019
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