Citation for Professor Alex James

Professor Alex James of the University of Canterbury has a record of outstanding research and distinguished service in the field of applied mathematics.

Alex has made an exceptional range of research contributions in mathematical modelling, with over 65 journal articles spanning theoretical and applied areas. Her applied research includes significant contributions to problems of national importance, including translocation of West Coast snail species, weed invasion of farmland, the Mycoplasma bovis epidemic, the academic pay gap, and the Covid-19 response. She has also published highly cited papers on theoretical problems, for example on Lévy walks and complex ecological systems, in prestigious journals including Nature, Royal Society journals, and Ecology Letters.

Alex has led a powerful suite of research findings on gender inequity in academia in New Zealand and beyond. This work began with a 2020 paper finding that male researchers have nearly double the odds of being a Professor or Associate Professor compared with female researchers of similar age and research score. Several of her papers explore possible causes and solutions for the gender pay gap. These papers are unique in the field, in that they explore women’s lived experiences in a quantitative way. For example, her 2023 paper explores double-binds and double-whammies facing women in academia, examples of no-win situations that detrimentally affect women’s career progression. Alex’s 2022 article investigates the ‘levers of change’ that universities could pull to improve equity outcomes, while her recent article in Royal Society Open Science models ethnicity and intersectional effects on equity in employment outcomes.

From early 2020, Alex played a leading role as part of New Zealand’s national Covid-19 modelling team, setting aside her research plans to do a science pivot. Her collective work on biomathematics and gender equity, internationally recognised in its own right, had to take a back seat to science that lay at the core of the public interest. She worked in real time with government advisors and policymakers on matters of crucial national importance. Her involvement in developing mathematical models, analysing data, and communicating the results was a significant contribution to New Zealand’s world-leading response to Covid-19. In addition to working in this consultative role for the New Zealand Government, her team developed novel and innovative approaches to epidemic modelling.

Alex has an impressive range of recent publications in highly-ranked journals. These include papers about predicting water levels in wetlands under climate change, modelling balanced harvesting in fisheries, the optimal brood size in populations, and modelling endangered languages with a focus on te reo Māori.

Alex has shown national leadership in leveraging and expanding the network of Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence in complex systems, to pull together impactful research on many fronts. Her work on the “DT model” for masting is at the heart of the Department of Conservation's multimillion dollar "Battle for our Birds" campaign, and is also used by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research for management decisions.

Alex has attracted several million dollars in research funding, including four fully funded PhD scholarships, 10 years worth of postdoctoral funding and 14 summer scholarships, from sources including Te Pūnaha Matatini, National Science Challenges, and numerous Crown Research Institutes and Government Departments. Alex has supervised over 50 student projects, including 10 PhDs and four Masters students. She has co-authored 19 journal papers with students from a range of disciplines including creative arts, linguistics, Māori and Indigenous studies, as well as students in Mathematics and Statistics. She has supervised nine postdoctoral fellows and mentored junior scientists at the University of Canterbury and Manaaki Whenua. She was a plenary speaker at the Australian Mathematical Society conference in 2016 and at the Society for Mathematical Biology conference in 2018.

Alex’s service activities have a strong equity focus. She has contributed at the national level to gender equity, showing initiative and courage by scrutinizing and reporting on sensitive and complex issues. Her gender equity work has been used by the Tertiary Education Commission in their recent review of New Zealand’s research assessment framework, and by the University of Canterbury in their promotions review. She has been profiled by the New Zealand Herald and Radio New Zealand. Her gender-equity work has been covered by Times Higher Education and Guardian Education, and her linguistics work by the ABC and BBC.

Alex contributed considerably to the public discussion of the science behind New Zealand’s Covid-19 response. She has been highly active in the media, contributing media interviews and communicating the science behind the health advice and decision-making to the public. She also provided comment to international news outlets and co-authored three articles in The Conversation, which together have received over 750,000 reads. With global trust in science at a low ebb, Alex’s science communication has shown New Zealand and the world the value of trusting in good science.

The title of Alex’s professorial lecture – Changing the World, one Data-point at a Time – embodies her service-oriented work ethic and commitment to improving the evidence base for impactful decisions from the local to the global stage. Currently, Alex is contributing to the mathematical evidence base for efforts to improve equity in student achievement. This type of service is just one example of her selflessness in giving her time and expertise in the service of a more just world for all.

Overall, Alex’s academic and professional activities demonstrate an exceptional degree of promoting engagement of mathematics with the wider world and beyond the traditional boundaries of the discipline. She brings a mathematical lens to areas where this has not traditionally been done and has the courage to work on controversial yet crucial questions. She has the vision to use the power of mathematics and data science to challenge the status quo and illuminate a brighter future.

For these reasons, the selection committee believes that Professor Alex James is a very worthy winner of the 2024 E.O. Tuck Medal.