Welcome to Dr Eleni Matechou who is joining us for the year to work with Professor Shirley Pledger and Dr Richard Arnold and to take part in some of our Applied Statistics teaching. Eleni recently completed her PhD at the University of Kent at Canterbury in the UK.

Welcome to Dr Petros Hadjicostas who has joined the staff. Dr Hadjicostas is a mathematical statistician with a PhD from Carnegie Mellon and was recently on staff at the Texas Tech University.

Social inequality has worsened over the past decade in New Zealand, a new study from Victoria University of Wellington shows.

Research by Dr Lisa Marriott, an associate professor in Victoria’s School of Accounting and Commercial Law, and Dr Dalice Sim, Statistical Consultant in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research, builds on a report produced by the Ministry of Social Development in 2003. It reveals that, on the whole, inequality has worsened over the last 10 years for Māori and Pacific people relative to Europeans.

Lisa and Dalice examined 21 social inequality indicators, including measures of health; knowledge and skills; employment; standards of living; cultural identity; and social connectedness. Increased gaps were found between Europeans and Māori, and Europeans and Pacific people, in most of these areas. The working paper can be found at http://cms.victoria.ac.nz/sacl/centres-and-institutes/cpf/publications/pdfs/2015/WP09_2014_Indicators-of-Inequality.pdf

Associate Professor Marriott was interviewed about their findings on Checkpoint (1 August) http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/20146618/social-inequality-worsened-over-past-decade-study

The university’s alumni magazine published an article in its Autumn 2014 edition on the success of mathematics at Victoria. Here is an extended version of that article by Professor Rod Downey, Click Here

Dr. Asher Kach from the University of Connecticut has joined the school as a post-doctoral fellow. Dr. Kach will be working with Professor Downey and MSOR visitor Professor Steffen Lempp.

Dan Turetsky joins us as a postdoctoral fellow working with Noam Greenberg and Rod Downey. Dan recently received his PhD from the University of Madison, Wosconsin under the supervision or Steffen Lempp. Dan and Steffen visited us for 3 months in 2009. Dan will be here for 2 years. He works in mathematical logic particularly aspects of computability theory.

Dr. Dalice Sim has accepted the post of statistical consultant and will begin work on 1 March 2010. Her office will be Cotton 533.

She will be available to staff and graduate students of the university for statistical consultation on research topics.

See also the Statistical Consulting Webpage.

The School is delighted to welcome three new postdoctoral researchers.

Dr Alexander Melnikov received his two Phd's late 2012; one from Novosibirsk under the direction of Professor Sergei Goncharov, and the other from Auckland under the direction of Andre Nies and Bhakhadyr Khoussainov. He works in computability theory, specializing in computable algebra and analysis. He is here for a year on a postdoctoral fellowship to work with Professor Downey and Associate Professor Greenberg (and Dr Day when he arrives). In 2014 he will begin a 2 year fellowship at the University of California Berkeley.

Tanya Gvozdeva received her PhD from Auckland University in 2012 under the direction of Arkadii Slinko. She works in combinatorics and the mathematics of social choice. She is here for the year as a teaching fellow. She will accmpany Melnikov to Berkeley in 2014.

Rong Chen is a talented young matroid theorist who has a permanent position at Fuzhou University in China. She has been awarded a Fellowship from the Chinese government to spend one year visiting Victoria University and work with the matroid group here.

The latest episode of the TVNZ7 programme "Ever Wondered" featured our very own Dr Dillon Mayhew, together with Prof Mike Steel (University of Canterbury) and Prof Andy Philpott (University of Auckland). This episode (series 2, episode 9) was on "Maths" and is now available online at http://tvnz.co.nz/ever-wondered/s2-e9-video-4426539

It is with great regret that we announce the death of Dr Wang who died unexpectedly on the 22nd October. He will be greatly missed by his students, colleagues, friends and family.

Tributes to Dr Wang can be left on http://www.tributes.co.nz/ViewMyTribute.aspx?id=5827

The funeral will be held 11am Monday 1st November at the Karori Crematorium. Followed by a wake at Victoria University.

Since March Dillon Mayhew has started visiting Nights programme on Radio New Zealand. He has been talking to Bryan Crump about mathematics generally, while they have also discussed the new book by Cedric Villani, the death of John Nash and the Millennium Prize problems.

Please see below the links to the radio broadcasts:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/20171635/mathematics

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/201755355/mathematics

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/201763622/mathematics

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/201772023/mathematics-the-seven-impossible-problems