smsas newsletter/ february 2017 - university of kent · pdf filesmsas newsletter . ... ncse...
TRANSCRIPT
KEY DATES
MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS AND INTEGRABLE SYSTEMS SEMINAR - PETER CLARKSONFriday 3rd March, 12.05pm - 12.55pm
Maths Lecture Theatre
ALGEBRA SEMINAR - NICOLO SIBILLA Friday 3rd March, 3.00pm - 4.00pm
Rutherford Annex
POSTGRADUATE SEMINAR - ALEX ROGERSFriday 3rd March, 4.00pm - 5.00pm
SMSAS Seminar Room (112), Rutherford Annex
INDUSTRIAL PLACEMENTS CAMPUS DAY | POSTER PRESENTATIONSMonday 6th March, 11.00am - 12.30pm &
1.30pm - 3.00pm, Woolf
MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM - DAVID CORFIELDTuesday 7th March, 2.30pm - 5.30pm
Maths Lecture Theatre
SMSAS SCHOOL BOARDWednesday 8th March, 2.00pm - 3.00pm
Maths Lecture Theatre
STATISTICS SEMINAR - ALISON JOHNSTON (BRITISH TRUST FOR ORNITHOLOGY)Thursday 9th March, 2.05pm - 2.55pm
CNWsr5
MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS AND INTEGRABLE SYSTEMS SEMINAR - CHRISTOPHE CHARLIER (UNIVERSITÉ CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, BELGIUM)Friday 10th March, 12.05pm - 12.55pm
Maths Lecture Theatre
ALGEBRA SEMINAR - ANDY HONEFriday 10th March, 3.00pm - 4.00pm
Rutherford Annex
POSTGRADUATE SEMINAR - FLORIS CLAASSENSFriday 10th March, 4.00pm - 5.00pm
SMSAS Seminar Room (112), Rutherford Annex
UPDATE FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
In the natural world, Spring is associated with renewal and fresh growth. Over the next few weeks, we will have the opportunity for both! Our long-awaited Periodic Programme Review will take place at the end of March. It is the culmination of two years of hard work by the Education Committee and others, aimed at renewing most of our undergraduate programmes. It looks as though the new Stage 1 modules are going down well with the students – roll on Stage 2!
Talking of renewal, many students are now beginning to realise that, with the exams coming soon, they need a better grasp of basic techniques that they knew once but have now forgotten. Please do encourage your students to use the videos and other resources that James Smith has developed for Recharge Your Maths. They are available to all students at Stage 2 or above from the Recharge Your Maths pages on Moodle.
We’re now about to move to our new home in the Sibson Building. No move is ever easy, but with planning and goodwill, we will get there. I’m hugely grateful to Karen Cherpin for all the extra work she is doing to try to help everyone and enable the move to go as smoothly as possible. Looking beyond the move, we need to work out together how we can maximise the benefit of our new home. The next School Board will focus on this; it will have a format that should enable everyone to contribute their ideas informally, as part of a discussion. If you haven’t seen the Sibson Building since it was finished, please do take the opportunity of a visit soon, so that our discussions will be as well-informed as possible.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE...
MOVE TO SIBSON: OFFICE OPENING TIMES
General Office Opening Times - Friday 17th March
The office will be open 9am to 12pm on Friday 17th March for queries only. No coursework submissions can be accepted on this day. The office will be closed in the afternoon.
Sibson Reception Opening Times
The new SMSAS reception in the Sibson Building will be open 2pm to 5pm on Monday 20th March.
From Tuesday 21st March the reception will be open 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday.
The old Cornwallis Maths Office will not be in use after Friday 17th March.
SMSAS Newsletter www.kent.ac.uk/smsas
KEY DATES CONT...MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM - MOHSIN JAVED (UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD)Tuesday 14th March, 2.30pm - 3.30pm
Maths Lecture Theatre
SMSAS EDI COMMITTEEWednesday 15th March, 2.00pm - 4.00pm
McVittie Library
STATISTICS SEMINAR - STELLA HADJIANTONIThursday 16th March, 2.05pm - 2.55pm
CNWsr5
ALGEBRA SEMINAR - NEIL SAUNDERS (CITY UNIVERSITY)Friday 17th March, 3.00pm - 4.00pm
Rutherford Annex
WELLBEING WALK / BRING YOUR OWN GROUP PICNICTuesday 21st March, 12.30pm - 2.00pm
Meet in SMSAS Foyer
MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM - MELINA FREITAG (UNIVERSITY OF BATH)Tuesday 21st March, 2.30pm - 3.30pm
Maths Lecture Theatre
CASRI SEMINAR - PROF. PAUL SWEETINGWednesday 22nd March, 1.00pm - 2.00pm
DLT3
STATISTICS SEMINAR - GARETH ROBERTS (WARWICK UNIVERSITY)Thursday 23rd March, 2.05pm - 2.55pm
CNWsr5
MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS AND INTEGRABLE SYSTEMS SEMINAR - ALFREDO DEANOFriday 24th March, 12.05pm - 12.55pm
Maths Lecture Theatre
ALGEBRA SEMINAR - CHRIS BOWMANFriday 24th March, 3.00pm - 4.00pm
Rutherford Annex
VIEW FULL EVENTS CALENDAR
NEWS IN BRIEF
Funding awarded to Dr Rachel McCrea, Dr Diana Cole and Dr Eleni Matcheou.Rachel, Diana and Eleni have been awarded funding for a NERC Advanced Training Short Course `Statistical models for wildlife population assessment and conservation’ for 2018 and 2019, following the successful course in January 2017. Project partners include Professor Richard Griffiths, DICE, Dr Richard Comont, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Dr Humphrey Crick, Natural England and Dr David Leech, British Trust for Ornithology.
Prof. Philip Brown was funded by Universita Ca’Foscari, Venice to collaborate with researchers at the European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT). Philip spent two weeks in January 2017in Venice developing models in early stage Drug Discovery useful to Computational Chemistry. A return visit to SMSAS by Dr Debora Slanzi will take place in June 2017.
Successful Internationalisation Mobility Fund bid for Actuarial Science. Nick Wood, Mark Heller and Will Carpenter have been attending recruitment events in Malaysia, China and Thailand thanks to a successful bid to the Internationalisation Mobility Fund totaling £4,210.
Dr Cesar Lecoutre recently gave a talk at Colloque Tournament 2017 du GDR TLAG (Théorie de Lie Algébrique et Géométrique).Cesar was an invited speaker at the conference in which he presented a talk entitled, ‘Une famille de quantifications d’espaces projectifs’.
The National Centre for Statistical Ecology summer meeting will be held this year at Kent during the week beginning 26th June. The plenary speaker will be Professor Rob Freckleton, Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor of Population Biology, University of Sheffield. The meeting will include a one-day workshop by Professors David Borchers, University of St Andrews, and Finn Lingren, University of Edinburgh, on “Spatial Point Process Modeling with INLAbru”.
Further information will be made available in due course on the NCSE web site and also at: http://bit.ly/2mJT2PA
Prof. Peter Clarkson and Dr Ana Loureiro receive LMS Research Grant.Congratulations to Peter and Ana who have been awarded a grant of £5,000 by the London Mathematical Society.
SMSAS Newsletter www.kent.ac.uk/smsas
SMSAS Newsletter www.kent.ac.uk/smsas
VC’S CUPThe School’s first ever VC’s Cup Team, Flabacus, has taken the competition by storm, competing in every event so far.
The team comprised of both Professional Services and Academic staff is currently 8th in the table, with 62 points overall, just 15 points behind front-runners ‘Eat My Shorts’ (EMS).
So far the team has competed in Gladiators, Volleyball and Rowing, with Joe Watkins and Judith Broom taking the team up the table after impressive rowing sprints by both rowers.
The team is currently second in the Faculty, just 2 points behind last year’s winners, ‘Nobody Does it bEDA’ (EDA).
FLABACUS NEEDS YOU! Team Flabacus is looking for enthusiastic individuals to join the team. Academics, Professional Services, PhDs and Student Ambassadors can all take part. Details of the events can be found on the next page.
If you or someone you know is interested in joining, please contact Francis Samra or Amy Ward.
NEWS FROM THE STATISTICAL ECOLOGY AT KENT GROUP
NERC funded advanced short course run by SE@K The course took place 9-13 January 2017 at the University of Kent and was run by SE@K’s Diana, Eleni, and Rachel and DICE’s Richard Griffiths with the help of SE@K PhD students Alex, Anita, Marina and Ming.
30 participants traveled from all around the UK for the course which involved lectures, R practicals, talks by Humphrey Crick from Natural England and Rufus Howard from IEMA, round table discussions on ecological challenges and the role of statistical modeling in dealing with some of these challenges and 1-1 sessions with the course organisers for all participants who wanted to discuss their studies and data.
On Tuesday Richard kicked off the day by discussing the types of population data that we need in conservation practice. Humphrey then went on to discuss problems in modern conservation and the role of statistical modeling. Finally Rufus Howard talked about Big Data (Gaps) in EIA. A round table discussion then focused on obstacles to incorporating statistical models and priorities of ecologists.
The rest of the week focused on statistical methods used in statistical ecology including abundance estimation, capture-recapture, occupancy modeling, distance sampling, citizen science data, modeling movement, species interaction models, spatial models and integrated modeling.
The course was successful at introducing complex statistical ideas, exposing participants to a wide range of statistical techniques and discussing state-of-the-art statistical methods.
Paper by Dr Emily Dennis and Prof. Byron Morgan makes national news. Emily and Byron’s paper on ‘Urban Indicators for UK Butterflies’, written with David Roy and Tom Brereton, first published in Ecological Indicators, hit the national press this month.
The research was picked up by papers such as The Guardian, The Times, The Sun and The Daily Mail, as well as an array of other regional publications.
The paper can be found: http://bit.ly/2lVulyX
Articles include:The Guardian: http://bit.ly/2mcg2K5 The Daily Mail: http://dailym.ai/2lCdul2
University of Kent News Centre: http://bit.ly/2mwmD2M
SMSAS Newsletter www.kent.ac.uk/smsas