ANZIAM Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual)

Sunday 31 January 2021 to Friday 5 February 2021

The current version of the conference booklet is now available (current as of 30.01.2021):

The virtual venue landing page for the conference is now available:

The annual ANZIAM conference promotes the advancement and dissemination of knowledge in all areas of applied and industrial mathematics. We encourage HDR students, postdoctoral researchers, academic staff and researchers across government and industry to attend and share their latest research!

In 2021, in light of the uncertainty that 2020 has cast over the near future for Australia, the world and particularly long distance travel and global health, the conference will be a virtual event running from the evening of Sunday 31 January until the afternoon of Friday 5 February. We will be running the conference through a highly immersive virtual conference environment hosted on the unique web-based platform gather.town. We have organised a virtual conference venue running on this platform which is customised and maintained by Virtual Chair to provide the most integrated and natural conference experience possible with live talks, seamlessly connected social events and networking opportunities, an integrated schedule to tell (and show) you where you need to be, technical support, and most importantly the opportunity for discussions to begin as spontaneously and naturally as at in-person events.

If you have not yet registered, please do so here:

Live plenary invited talks will cover diverse topics such as dynamical systems, computational mathematics, mathematical biology, fluid mechanics, and optimisation. The technical program will feature oral presentations in parallel sessions. Participants are encouraged to share graphical abstracts for advertising their talks and having discussions in a dedicated foyer and there will also be an option of sending in a pre-recorded version of your talk to share at watch parties timetabled to ensure that attendees from Western Australia to New Zealand and even around the world can find a suitable time to engage with the presentations.

Follow @ANZIAMnews and #ANZIAM2021 for updates!

We want you to stay in touch with us so that we can guide you through the process of the virtual conference. If you have questions you can send them to ANZIAM2021@gmail.com or join us on Slack where you can talk to organisers and other attendees in real time.

Invited speakers

Dr Rachelle Binny, Landcare Research, New Zealand
Prof Linda Cummings, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Prof Dr Gabriele Eichfelder, Technische Universitaet Ilmenau
Prof Larry Forbes, University of Tasmania
Prof Nathan Kutz, University of Washington
Prof Mat Simpson, QUT
Prof Ian Turner, QUT
Dr Cecile Viboud, National Institutes of Health

Virtual conference venue

gather.town is a web-based video conferencing/networking platform. Before the conference you will be issued with a URL to gain admission to the conference venue. When you log in you will control a two-dimensional customisable avatar. This is you. The avatar is embedded in a two-dimensional world reminiscent of 1990 role playing games. This world will be a fully functional conference venue complete with

a lobby with tables, TVs, a monitored help desk etc.,
a foyer where you can have discussions and read graphical abstracts for the upcoming talks, leading to
a number of seminar rooms for parallel and pre-recorded sessions,
a large plenary room,
a versatile presentation space for panel discussions as well as cooking classes,
a collaboration space configured for co-working, activities and games, and
features made possible only in the digital world such as hyperspace which can be used for fast navigation through the centre.

avatar virtual environment avatar

You will navigate the two-dimensional conference centre using just the arrow keys on your keyboard. As you encounter other registrants in the corridors of the centre, a video and audio feed will fade in and out based on your proximity which gives the illusion of 'bumping into' people spontaneously. You can also do other fancy things like generate a path between you and any attendee present so you do not have to go looking for people. Some items in the environment interact with you on proximity and others require you simply to press "x" on your keyboard to interact. In this way, the environment is configured to integrate with other environments such as zoom. We will also have access to a dedicated server to provide a smooth experience.

If you want to explore the software ahead of the conference, a free demo is available at gather.town. If you are concerned about having to learn the technical aspects of the software, Gather is designed to be intuitive and to replicate the feeling of a real conference as close as possible from your home office. Before the conference begins, on Sunday 31st January, we will be running a guided tour and tutorial of the virtual venue. You can also read further details on our conference philosophy.

Virtual social events

We want ANZIAM2021 to be as enjoyable as possible under the constraints of a virtual environment and we are excited to invite registrants to a number of formal and informal events that we have arranged.

Indigenous Australian cooking: damper and pavlova workshops

We are very pleased to be able to offer social damper and pavlova cooking classes within our virtual environment with Chef Nornie Bero from Mabu Mabu | Indigenous Catering, which is a Torres Strait Islander owned and run business based in Melbourne. In these workshops you will join with other registrants and cook these culturally iconic dishes with indigenous traditional flavors. These workshops are optional and can be booked at registration for just $15 each. If you are considering joining this unique virtual experience, you should read the details provided by Chef Nornie. As we need to plan this well in advance, it is important that you observe the due dates for booking and ordering ingredient kits.

damper Chef Nornie Bero pavlova

Medal ceremony and social event

It is a tradition at ANZIAM to hold a celebration of our achievements as a society and present prestigious medals. Usually this celebration takes the form of a formal dinner the day before the end of the conference. It is not possible to have a formal dinner in a virtual conference but we will not let coronavirus get in the way of us sharing this important time together!

On the night of Thursday 4th February, we will hold a virtual medal ceremony in the conference venue. This medal ceremony will be open to every registrant to attend live. At the end of formal proceedings there will be time to mingle and congratulate medal winners. We encourage you to BYO drinks to celebrate our annual achievements in a difficult year. After this time, we will reconvene for a special virtual social event which will be professionally hosted and designed for a good time, lots of laughs and a chance to mingle, chat and have fun. This post-medal social event is optional and costs just $15 to take part.

Please read more about the post-medal social event.

Women in applied mathematics panel

The Women in Applied Mathematics Panel will be held under the umbrella of the Women in Mathematics Special Interest Group (WIMSIG) of the Australian Mathematical Society from 12.30-2pm (AEDT) on 2nd February. It is free to all registrants, regardless of gender or membership of WIMSIG. The purpose of the panel is to celebrate women in the mathematical sciences and to support women, and particularly early career researchers, to enter and establish careers in mathematics. Come along and hear about the careers of female applied mathematicians, and discuss issues concerning women in mathematics.

The panel will be chaired by Professor Yvonne Stokes - School of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Adelaide

The panellists are:

Associate Professor Hamideh Anjomshoa - Enterprise Research Fellow, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne & Research Scientist and Technical lead, IBM Research-Australia
Dr Rachelle Binny - Mathematical Biology and Ecology Researcher, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, New Zealand
Professor Antoinette Tordesillas - School of Mathematics and Statistics & School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Dr Cecile Viboud - Senior Research Scientist, Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies of the Fogarty International Centre, National Institutes of Health, USA

Other formal events

We will have a range of free events that you are welcome to participate in. Many of these simply require you to let us know in the registration form that you wish to attend.

On Sunday 31st January, a student fun night is planned. There will be activities and a chance to meet fellow applied mathematics students from around Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the world. This is free for all students registering for ANZIAM2021. Please contact ANZIAM student representative Lachlan Burton for any enquiries.
An LGBTIQA+ and allies social gathering. We will hold this event on Thursday around afternoon tea time (AEDT).
The Mathematical Biology Special Interest Group workshop, which is traditionally held on the Friday after the conference, will be held on the following Monday (since ANZIAM will take the extra day this year). Thanks to generous sponsorship by the Special Emphasis Year in Biological Dynamics from Melbourne University's School of Mathematics and Statistics, registration for this event is completely free for all who register for ANZIAM2021. If you wish to attend the workshop without coming to ANZIAM2021, then a $5 fee will be requested. This event will take place within the ANZIAM2021 virtual conference centre. Please contact workshop co-organiser Stuart Johnston for any enquiries.

Informal networking and social opportunities

In addition to our formal social events, we have a number of informal activities

We will have a collaboration room designed purely for co-working, casual interaction and fun. This space will have dedicated working and chatting spaces, integrated games and other features which make it a great place to meet friends and coworkers.
A friendly chess tournament will be run and a small prize given to the winner. The tournament will be scheduled. If you wish to participate, you just need to let us know your intention on the registration form.
We wish you could have joined us on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria this year. In lieu of giving you the opportunity to visit the penguins at nearby Phillip Island, we will be running an evening live streaming of the penguins coming to shore at Phillip Island with commentary. If this suits you, please join us in the virtual lobby and feel free to bring children (this also applies to many of our social activities).
We will have plenty of dedicated free time for you to interact and network at the virtual venue. You may use this to catch up with people or catch up with your duties that come with staying at home for a conference. Flexibility is important to us as we acknowledge that committing to 5 continuous full days from home is not possible for many. That being said, we want to facilitate and encourage connectedness for our community in this isolating time.

ANZIAM Annual General Meeting

The 2021 AGM will be held on February 2nd 2021 at 4pm ADST. The agenda can be downloaded here (PDF, 2 MB).

Registration and abstract submission

Please read more about graphical abstracts and pre-recorded talks.

Key dates:

Registration opens: 14th November 2020
Early bird registration closes: 18th December 2020
Requesting delivery of ingredients for cooking workshops closes: 18th December 2020
All titles, abstracts, keywords/categories for live talks as well as pre-recorded talks and graphical abstracts due: 8th January 2021
Registration for cooking workshops and the post-medal event close: 15th January 2021
Registrations close (including MBSiG workshop): 29th January

Registration fees:

	Early bird (ANZIAM member)	Early bird (non-member)	Standard (ANZIAM member)	Standard (non-member)
Full*	$80	$90	$120	$130
Student**	$20	$25	$30	$35

* SIAM members are eligible for the ANZIAM discount in line with our SIAM partnership.

**The prices quoted here for students include a 50% discount. These discounted student prices were made possible by generous sponsorship by the Special Emphasis Year in Biological Dynamics from Melbourne University's School of Mathematics and Statistics who have committed to contributing one dollar for every dollar paid by students in registration fees.

Additional (optional) fees:

Damper workshop	$15
Damper kit + Delivery to AU/NZ	$35 per kit
Pavlova workshop	$15
Pavlova kit + Delivery to AU/NZ	$45 per kit
Post-medal social event	$15
MBSiG workshop with conference registration	Free
MBSiG workshop without conference registration	$5

Code of conduct

The conference is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks, workshops, parties and online media.

Agreeing to the ANZIAM 2021 Conference Code of Conduct is a condition of registration.