News archive
A list of previous news items can be found below. Please check our main News and Events page for current information.
2011
Poster prize
Congratulations to Bart Vorselaars, winner of the second prize for the best poster at this year's IOP Polymer Physics conference.
Front cover article
Bart Vorselaars and Mark Matsen's "hot article" was featured on the front cover of "Soft Matter". The paper considers diblock copolymers grafted to the surface of a spherical core. It reveals an array of interesting behaviors as the block copolymer pattern is forced to adapt to the finite surface area of the sphere. The work also presents an efficient algorithm for solving the diffusion equations.
Olga Taussky-Todd lecture
We are delighted to announce that Beatrice Pelloni has been selected to give the Olga Taussky-Todd Lecture at the 7th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) in Vancouver in 2011.
The Olga Taussky-Todd Lecture is one of the invited lectures at the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, which is the pre-eminent international meeting of applied and industrial mathematicians, held every four years. This honour is conferred on a "woman who has made outstanding contributions in applied mathematics and/or scientic computation". The lecture is named in tribute to the memory of Olga Taussky-Todd, whose scientific legacy is in both theoretical and applied mathematics, and whose work exemplifies the qualities to be recognized.
Winter 2010-2011
Frontiers of Sciences Lectures at the Association of Science Education
Dr Sue Todd and Professors Peter Grindrod and Simon Chandler-Wilde gave Frontiers of Science lectures at the Association for Science Educations Annual Conference held in January 2011 at the University of Reading. This prestigious conference is for all involved in science education, including teachers, technicians, advisors, or those interested in science education, and was attended by over 3500 participants, bringing together leading players from the science education arena.
Sue's lecture 'Statistics in Clinical Trials' looked at where statistics is used in clinical trials programmes, from the design of individual studies and the valid interpretation of patient data, to ensuring the safe and ethical conduct of trials.
Peter's lecture 'Modelling the Digital Society and Digital Economy: Creating New Spaces in Which to Work and Play' looked at how modern advances in IT, fast communications, and the convergence of useable platforms are producing new spaces in which individuals can work, rest and play, and how innovations lead to an explosive take-up of services which radically disrupts and changes entire commercial sectors, social norms, and aspirations.
Simon's lecture 'Mathematics in the Sewers: Developments in Acoustic Inverse Problems' looked at how the important and growing application area in the analysis and design of methods for problems of remote detection and imaging is being used in the UK for acoustic remote inspection of the UK's ageing 300,000 km sewerage system.
Magnificent Maths and Stats Fun Day
The Department played host to teenagers from across the south in December 2010 in a bid to encourage them to study mathematics and statistics at a higher level.
Year 12 students from a range of schools used mathematics and statistics to solve a murder, predict epidemics, drill for oil and model new polymers as part of the Magnificent Maths and Stats event run by the Department in conjunction with the Student Recruitment and Outreach Office.
Summer 2010
Early Career Teaching Fellowship
We are delighted to announce that Dr Karen Ayres has been awarded an Early Career Teaching Fellowship by the University. The University of Reading Early Career Teaching Fellowship is a prestigious award conferred on an individual who has demonstrated individual excellence early in their career and contributed to the development of teaching and learning within the University.
Mathematics in Education and Industry
The annual Mathematics in Education and Industry (MEI) conference returned to the University in July to hold another very successful and stimulating three-day event. Nearly 200 school teachers from all over the UK and abroad were in attendance, as well a number of HE staff. This included many who are part of the Further Mathematics Support Programme, an initiative which seeks to enable and support all students (and their teachers) who are taking mathematics 'A' level and who wish to pursue, in addition, Further Mathematics, either at 'AS' or 'A2', and which the Mathematics Department at Reading participates in. Apart from sessions specifically for the Further Mathematics Support Programme team, including one by our very own Dr Calvin Smith, and 11 sessions with up to 11 activities in parallel taking place, the Royal Statistical Society also held their annual conference here as part of the programme.
Teaching Award
Congratulations to Dr Calvin Smith on his recent award for Outstanding contributions to Teaching and Learning in our School. Calvin was recognised for his impressive involvement in all aspects of Mathematics teaching.
Prize winners
Congratulations to four of our finalists who have been awarded the following prizes:
- Sarah Costello, BSc Mathematics - Richard Rado Prize for being the best BSc student
- Teedah Saratoon, MMath Mathematics - Cowan-Burns prize for being the best MMath student
- Prabin Dahal, BSc Mathematics and Applied Statistics and Joshua Daby, MPhys Mathematics and Physics - Institute of Mathematics and its Applications prizes for outstanding performances
June 2010
Mathematics in the News and Open Days
The Department has recently featured in the Guardian as part of a case study following several students through the application process. Catherine Westbrook has applied to the Department to study Mathematics and after attending one of our Open Days said that she "felt like [she] fitted in completely... [and that the] professors were ... incredibly helpful." Our Open Days are an important part of the student recruitment process and are always very well received. Well done to all the staff and current students who are involved in putting on these successful events!
Congratulations to all our finalists!
Congratulations to all our finalists! The Department is very happy to award degrees in recognition of all your hard work. We wish you all the best for the future and hope you will all stay in touch and let us know where you go next to study or work. We would like to invite all our graduating mathematics students and their guests to a drinks reception at 12pm on June 30th in the Museum of English Rural Life.
May 2010
Further Maths Revision Days
The Department recently hosted two highly successful Further Maths Revision Days for year 12/13 students taking A level Further Maths Modules. Nearly 40 different sessions were offered covering a very wide range of topics in pure mathematics and its applications and encompassing four separate exam boards.
March 2010
'Magnificent Maths! - Maths in the real world' - National Science and Engineering Week
As part of National Science and Engineering Week the Maths Department organised a fun day of events - 'Magnificent Maths! - Maths in the real world' encouraging local school children to engage with science and engineering. This was a day of hands-on experience for students in years 9-11, demonstrating the application of mathematics to a range of real world problems including weather prediction, the spread of infectious diseases and drilling for oil.
Maths student sporting success
It is with great pleasure that we announce that a former mathematics and statistics undergraduate, Bethany Dearlove, has had an outstanding year of synchronised swimming, recognised by being rewarded the Player Loyalty Trophy at the Reading Sports Personality of the Year awards. The event, rescheduled due to the New Year snow, was held at The Hilton Hotel which welcomed guests with an F1 car in the foyer. Bethany was commended for continuing her sport to a high standard whilst attending University, for her commitment to keeping up her fitness when at home in the holidays, and her dedication to catching up on the routines on her return to the Reading Royals. On completion of her Undergraduate degree here in Reading, in which she was awarded a First in Mathematics and Statistics, Bethany chose to stay in Reading to study for a Masters in Biometry so she could also continue swimming -lending strength and experience to the squad's A Team. She was presented her prize by England Cricketer Claire Taylor MBE, who was a member of England's World Cup winning squad in 2009 and listed in the 2009 Wisden Cricketers of the Year. Taylor then went on the win the overall Reading Sports Personality of Year at the end of the evening.
The year had been the highlight of Bethany's swimming career so far with gold and bronze at the Scottish Open and then two silver medals at the British Championships in December. Her Free solo scored a personal best at both these events and it was a huge privilege to be sharing the podium with swimmers who train full time with the Great Britain squad and former British Champions. Bethany also took home the Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire technical and free solo titles for the second year running. With the British Championships being brought forward to April, Bethany is training hard alongside her studies to see if she can go one better this year.
January 2010
Olga Taussky-Todd lecture
We are delighted to announce that Beatrice Pelloni has been selected to give the Olga Taussky-Todd Lecture at the 7th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) in Vancouver in 2011.
The Olga Taussky-Todd Lecture is one of the invited lectures at the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, which is the pre-eminent international meeting of applied and industrial mathematicians, held every four years. This honour is conferred on a "woman who has made outstanding contributions in applied mathematics and/or scientic computation". The lecture is named in tribute to the memory of Olga Taussky-Todd, whose scientific legacy is in both theoretical and applied mathematics, and whose work exemplifies the qualities to be recognized. Congratulations to Beatrice!
Oustanding Young Scientist Award
We are delighted to announce that Valerio Lucarini has been awarded the Outstanding Young Scientist Award of the European Geosciences Union.
This award covers achievements obtained in any section of Geosciences, so competition was fierce. He will be given a medal and will give a plenary lecture at the next EGU assembly to be held in Vienna on May 2-7 2010. Congratulations to Valerio!
Reading Now in Top Five Mathematics Departments for Research Funding per Academic
Congratulations to Tobias Kuna who has just been awarded a grant from the Mathematical Sciences Programme of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to work on Classical Realizability and Quantum Representability: Truncated Moment Problems in Statistical Physics and Quantum Chemistry.
This grant, awarded under EPSRC's First Grant Scheme, is worth about £100K, and will support part of Tobias's time, significant travel, and a postdoc for one year.
This brings the total value of our current grants to well over £5M, including £2.8M from EPSRC which puts us into the top five Maths departments in the UK, in terms of research grant funding per academic, according to EPSRC's Grants on the Web. This is an impressive achievement given the large competition across the UK for all research council funding.
This funding, of course, brings many benefits, including: increased PhD and postdoc numbers enhancing our research environment and supporting our teaching; directly increased marks in the next research assessment; about £500K into the departmental budget over a five year period which is supporting additional PhD students, our Teaching Fellow and other staff; and, surely the largest benefit, excellent early career mathematicians supported to join our department.
Special Issue: Graphs and Designs in Honour of Anthony Hilton
A special issue of the Journal Discrete Mathematics in honour of Professor Anthony Hilton has been published (Volume 309 Issue 14, Guest Editors L.D. Andersen and C. Rodger).
December 2009
Mathematics student success
We are very happy and proud to celebrate the achievements of our students. A prize-giving event was held on Thursday 10th December in the Mathematics Department at which
the students receiving Achievement Prizes for the best performances in 2009 by mathematics students were honoured.
The recipients were:
Pu Huang (Mathematics and Economics), Harry Garnish (Computational Mathematics), Shelly Forrester (BSc Mathematics), Ieva Busmaite (Mathematics and Economics), Sarah Costello (BSc Mathematics), Gurkirit Plaha (BSc Mathematics) Alexander McCrindle (Mathematics and Econmics), Joshua Coe (Mathematics and Statistics), Joshua Darby (MPhys/MMath Mathematics and Physics), Teedah Saratoon (MMath Mathematics), Sam Bull (MMath Mathematics), Kiran Neupane (MMath Mathematics).
Congratulations to all our award winning students!
Dangoor Scholarships available in Mathematics
It was announced on December 8th that the maths department will award ten
Dangoor Scholarships, worth £1000 each, to new first years entering the
department in 2010. These scholarships are funded by the Eliahou Dangoor
Foundation, and are in addition to existing bursaries and scholarships.
The university press release about the Dangoor Scholarships can be found at
http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR258321.aspx
A full list of all scholarships and bursaries is available via
http://www.reading.ac.uk/life/life-money-ug.aspx
October 2009
In Memory of Dr Winifred Wood who died on October 24th 2009 aged 88.
Winifred Wood came to Reading University to do a PhD with Professor John Hunt in the 1960s after leaving a career in school teaching, subsequently becoming Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics.
Together with Professor Bill Morton she set up the MSc in the Numerical Solution of Differential Equations in the early 70s, a course that still continues today. She was an exceptionally good teacher, popular and well liked by both students and staff, and continued to teach on the MSc well after retirement until she was in her 80s.
Her research was concerned with the numerical analysis of flow in rivers and aquifers, much of it in association with Sir William Halcrow & Partners. She also collaborated with Ann Calver on a number of research projects at the Institute of Hydrology. Winifred was a very practical researcher who published books and many helpful articles for research workers. Postgraduate students who benefitted from her supervision included Alan Craig, Paul Samuels, Andrej Trkov, Steven Woolnough, Jon Wilson and Ben Weston, many of whom have gone on to highly successful careers in Academia and Industry.
When she eventually gave up teaching on the MSc Course it was to take up a new interest away from mathematics into art and literature. She joined a women's group on the campus and spent some time researching the life of Anne Cresacre who was brought up by Sir Thomas More. Her interests were far reaching and she never lost her lively edge. She will be missed.
Mathematics at Reading is 4th in the National Student Survey Results
Mathematics and Statistics at Reading have had an excellent set of results in the annual National Student Survey, published at the end of last month. The headline figure is that of Overall Student Satisfaction. This is a near perfect 98% for Mathematics and Statistics at Reading, which puts us 4th in the UK, and top of all the pre-92 Universities.
In the survey results the teaching on our courses, our academic support, our organisation and management, our learning resources, and the opportunities we provide for personal development are all highly rated. For example:
97% agree that our staff are good at explaining things
95% agree that staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching
92% agree that the course is intellectually stimulating
95% agree that the course is well organised and running smoothly
96% agree that I have been able to access IT resources when I needed to
90% feel confident in tackling unfamiliar problems as a result of the course
We are very pleased with these results, and will continue to improve our courses and student support further, aiming to maintain our results at this high level.
Notes. The National Student Survey is an electronic survey of final year students in all universities and across all subjects in the UK, which is commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), and is carried out annually, this year between January and May 2009. The survey results at Reading are based on a 64% response rate from the students, with 52 students based in Mathematics completing the questionnaire, and 10 students from Applied Statistics.
Appointment of New Professor of Applied Mathematics
We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Michael Levitin who will join the Department from 1 March 2010, from his current position as Professor of Analysis at Cardiff University and the Wales Institute of Mathematical and Computational Sciences.
Michael will bring to the department a deep knowledge and experience of mathematics at the intersection of pure analysis, applied mathematics, and mathematical physics, and experience of training students in mathematics from undergraduate to PhD level at universities in the UK and overseas. His current research centres on the foundations, applications, and numerical methods for spectral theory, with current projects including work on universal and isoparametric estimates, and null varieties; spectral geometry and quantum chaos; PT-symmetric problems and applications in quantum mechanics; foundations of numerical analysis; and mathematical problems of waveguide theory.
We look forward very much to Michael's arrival in March, and to the new developments across the department that this will stimulate.
Grant Application Successes
We are very pleased to announce a number of new EPSRC grant application successes, including:
1. two further awards for the Theoretical Polymer Physics Research Group (Prof Alexei Likhtman and collaborators);
2. a new grant for staff from Psychology and Clinical Language Science, Mathematics (Prof Peter Grindrod, Dr Roland Potthast) and Systems Engineering, working within the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics;
3. a new grant for Prof Simon Chandler-Wilde, as part of a larger project with acoustics and mechanical engineers at Bradford and Brunel Universities.
According to EPSRC Grants on the Web, only twelve other UK universities currently have more EPSRC funding held by Principal Investigators within Mathematical Sciences departments. Given our smaller size relative to some of these mathematics departments this is a fantastic achievement.
Congratulations to all our successful applicants!
New Lecturer in Mathematics
We are very pleased to announce that, following recent interviews of a very competitive field, Dr Zuowei Wang, from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has accepted our offer of the position of Lecturer in Applied Mathematics (Theoretical Polymer Physics) within the Department of Mathematics.
Dr Wang, who will start on 1 April 2010, will join Profs Alexei Likhtman and Mark Matsen and a large group of postdocs and PhDs, as a member of the Theoretical Polymer Physics Research Group within Mathematics. Dr Wang brings to the group and the larger School a very wide experience of theory and applications of polymer physics and extensive expertise in computational physics, having worked at leading international groups worldwide at the CNRS Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics in Nice, the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, and the Universities of Michigan and North Carolina. Dr Wang's appointment will play a key role in the further development of the Theoretical Polymer Physics group, and in the development of the links of the School with the rest of University, in particular with the School of Chemistry, Food, and Pharmacy.
September 2009
Mathematics welcomes its new students!
The Department is very pleased to welcome its new intake of undergraduate and postgraduate students! We hope you have a rewarding and enjoyable time here in Mathematics.
New Senior Tutor and Deputy Head of Department
As of 1st September the School has a new Senior Tutor. Dr Peter Sweby takes over from Dr Paul Glaister freeing Paul up to serve the Department in the new position of Deputy Head. We wish both Paul and Peter every success in their new roles and are pleased to be in such good hands!
August 2009
New arrivals
August is an exciting time in the Department! We are very happy to welcome Dr Valerio Lucarini as a lecturer, joint with Meteorology, who comes to us from the U. Bologna in Italy. Valerio mostly enjoys playing with dynamical systems, statistical mechanics, extreme events, and geophysical fluid dynamics.
We are very happy to welcome Dr Caroline Boess to the department. Caroline comes to us from the University of Bremen, where she did her PhD on the use of model reduction techniques in data assimilation. She joins our data assimilation group, as a research fellow of the National Centre for Earth Observation.
Summer 2009
EPSRC Career Acceleration Award
We are pleased to report the excellent news that Timo Betcke has been successful in his application for an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship, which will support a five-year research programme working on 'Next generation finite element methods for wave problems', with Schlumberger Cambridge Research as a project partner. 
Of course this is fantastic for Timo in supporting the development of his career, and for the prestige of the award (about 40 awards have been made across the Career Acceleration Fellowship and Leadership Fellowship schemes, out of about 650 original applications). It is also another significant win in terms of research income (£800K) for Mathematics and a significant addition to our research environment in terms of new early career researchers: the award will support Timo for 5 years, a 3-year postdoc, 2 3.5 year PhDs, and a significant programme of academic visitors, from Dartmouth and Delaware in the USA, from Bath, Manchester and Southampton in the UK, and from ETH Zurich.
Congratulations Timo on a great result!
Teaching Awards
Congratulations to Sue Davis and Tobias Kuna on their recent awards made for Outstanding contributions to Teaching and Learning in our School. Sue was recognised for the high-quality support she has given to postgraduates over many years and Tobias for his impressive mathematics teaching and for his work helping to form the new joint MSc venture between Maths and ICMA. Fellow School member Dan Kirshbaum (Meteorology) was also a recipient of an award.
Student teaching award
Our PhD Student Ratchanikorn Chonchaiya (better known 
to us as Heng) has won one of the Student Awards for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning Support, which will be presented to him by the Chancellor, Sir John Madejski, in the degree ceremony on 3 July. These are the awards for full-time and part-time teachers at Reading which are voted for by the students, and Heng has won this for his part-time work in the Maths Support Centre. This is a fantastic achievement as typically only about 5 awards to staff across the University are made in a given year.
Congratulations to all our finalists
Congratulations to all our finalists! This year the Department awarded a record high number of first class degrees in recognition of all your hard work. We wish you all the best for the future and hope you will all stay in touch and let us know where you go next to study or work. We would like to invite all our graduating mathematics students and their guests to a drinks reception at 2pm on July 3rd in the Museum of English Rural Life.
Senate elections
Congratulations to Paul Glaister on being successfully re-elected to the University Senate. Paul will serve until 31st July 2012.
Special Journal Issue
A special issue of the Journal of Integral Equations and Applications honoring Rainer Kress has been published as Volume 21, Number 2 in Summer 2009 (Editor R. Potthast). The issue includes contributions by Departmemt members Simon Chandler-Wilde, Steve Langdon and Roland Potthast.
RAW workbench
Researchers and developers of the University of Reading, led by Roland Potthast, have designed the Reading Analytic Workbench (RAW). The Reading Analytic Workbench
- is a web-based computing platform developed at the University of Reading,
- provides access to the advanced computing clusters run at the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) and the Department of Mathematics at Reading,
- offer you a simple way to access a wide range of specialised knowledge and special algorithms developed by researchers and staff of the University.
For more details see RAW Access Online.
Promotion
Congratulations to Peter Chamberlain on his well-deserved promotion to Senior Lecturer, which takes effect on October 1st.
New arrival
We are delighted to welcome Dr Gabriele Migliorini into the Department. Gabriele joins our successful polymer physics research group.
Grant Success
We are pleased to report a significant grant success for Professor Peter Grindrod; EPSRC has just awarded three large grants from its Digital Economy programme, including one to a highly multidisciplinary bid led by Nottingham with Cambridge and Reading as partners, the Reading end led by Pete.
This funding will support some of Pete's time and two 5-year postdoc positions (just shy of £1M in funding), one of which will sit in Maths and one in ACET. One of the other 5-year postdocs to be appointed will sit in Maths at Nottingham working with John King (and closely with the postdocs here).
Congratulations Pete on this success!