Program Extras
In addition to lectures, the AMSI Winter School program includes a range of social and extra-curricular activities to share ideas and help you see your research in a new light, build your networks and get the most out of your experience in Brisbane.
Registration and Opening Ceremony
Monday 24 June – Science Learning Centre, Priestley Buildinng (67), UQ St Lucia campus
Registration: 9.30am – 10.00am AEST
Opening Ceremony including APR.Intern Presentation: 10.00am – 11.00am AEST
Morning Tea: 11.00am – 11.30am AEST
Once you arrive on the UQ St Lucia campus, come and introduce yourself and meet the Winter School team who will be your hosts for the next two weeks. You’ll have some time to collect your name badge and event swag (water bottle, notepad with pen, pocket program) before we officially open the 2024 Winter School on Mathematics for Decision Making Under Uncertainty. Grab a seat and hear from our Keynote Speaker, Paddy Krishnan, Director, Research at Oracle Labs Australia.
APR.Intern Presentation
Looking for some practical experience in a professional research environment? Join the team from APR.Intern to learn how you can engage in a short-term paid placement with industry, and get a head start on your career.
Campus Tour
Monday 24 June – Science Learning Centre, Priestley Building (67), UQ, St Lucia campus
Campus Tour: 11.30am – 12.00pm
After the formalities of the Opening Ceremony, go on a campus tour to get your bearings and explore UQ’s sprawling St Lucia campus.
KeyPoint: eResearch platform for sensitive data
Monday 24 June – Forgan Smith (Building 01), E109, UQ St Lucia campus
3pm – 4pm
In this session, the team from QCIF will explore how KeyPoint’s unique integrated security measures facilitates data governance and access control for researchers, unlocking the full potential of sensitive data management.
Special Lecture: The role of engineering and science in the art of catastrophe risk modelling
Presented by Dr Matthew Mason
Monday 24 June – Forgan Smith (Building 01), E109, UQ St Lucia campus
4.00pm – 5.00pm AEST
Catastrophe Risk Models are used throughout the world to inform pricing of property insurance and reinsurance. While actuarial models for pricing property insurance have been used for some time, a series of natural hazard events in the USA in the late 1980s and early 1990s – Hurricane Hugo (1989), Loma Prieta Earthquake (1989) and Hurricane Andrew (1992) – showed the insurance industry that a more complete approach was needed to understand the potential losses such events could produce. Catastrophe risk models present an avenue for doing this, and through the aggregation of sub-models that probabilistically describe the hazard (e.g., cyclone wind gust intensity, frequency and spatial extent), vulnerability (i.e. expected damage or loss given a range of hazard metrics) and exposure of a portfolio of assets, catastrophe models can be used to assess financial risk to that portfolio, including event losses that may be beyond what has historically been experienced. Models can even be used to generate probabilistic estimates of loss in real-time as events are unfolding. As such, they’re versatile models but require expertise from a wide range of fields, including actuarial studies, engineering, meteorology, climatology, spatial and data sciences to be utilised. This talk will provide an overview of catastrophe risk modelling and detail research undertaken to develop components of these models that better assess hazard (tropical cyclone and thunderstorms) and vulnerability (cyclone, flood and thunderstorms) in the Australian context.
Dr Matthew Mason
Dr Mason began at The University of Queensland in late 2014 after holding academic positions at The University of Sydney and Queensland University of Technology. Prior to joining The University of Queensland he also worked as a catastrophe risk researcher for the industry-focused research centre, Risk Frontiers at Macquarie University. Matthew’s key areas of interest and expertise lie in the fields of:
- Wind Engineering
- Stochastic modelling of hazards, including convective storms and tropical cyclones
- Probabilistic modelling of structural and infrastructure vulnerability to wind, water and hail
- Catastrophe loss modelling for natural hazards
- Modelling and observation of the atmospheric boundary layer
- Wind tunnel testing and analysis
- Disaster insurance
Public Lecture: Dealing with Sensitive Data
Monday 24 June
Refreshments: 5.00pm, Atrium, Steele Building (03), UQ, St Lucia campus
Lecture: 6pm, Room 206, Steele Building (03)
Distinguished Professor, Kerrie Mengersen will consider two different models that allow statisticians to use datasets without compromising privacy conditions that can be attached to them.
Participant Talks – Round 1
Sponsored by Optiver
Tuesday 25 June – Forgan Smith Building (01) Room TBA
9.30am – 12.30pm AEST | Morning Tea provided
Share your work with peers around the country, build networks and be in the running to win up to $400 in prizes!
Special Lecture: A.N. Kolmogorov: A Biographical Sketch
Presented by Professor Konstantin Borovkov
Tuesday 25 June – Forgan Smith (Building 01), E109, UQ St Lucia
3.00pm – 4.30pm AEST
This presentation is an attempt to outline the life path of one of the most prominent mathematicians of the 20th century, Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov. One of the founders of modern probability theory, he obtained fundamental results in topology, geometry, mathematical logic, classical mechanics, turbulence theory, algorithm complexity theory, information theory, function theory, trigonometric series theory, measure theory, function approximation theory, set theory, differential equations, theory of dynamical systems, functional analysis and in a number of other areas of mathematics and its applications.
“Kolmogorov occupies a unique place in modern mathematics and in the scientific world. By the diversity and breadth of his scientific interest, he recalls the classical natural scientists of past centuries.” – N.N Bogolyubov et al. (1983)
Professor Konstantin Borokov
Konstantin Borovkov is a professor at the University of Melbourne’s School of Mathematics & Statistics. He graduated from Novosibirsk State University and got his Ph.D. and Dr.Sci. degrees from the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow, where he worked as a research fellow until moving to Melbourne in 1995. K. Borovkov published about 100 research papers and authored and co-authored several books. His main research areas are limit theorems for stochastic processes and their applications.
Special Lecture: Using data science to decrease the environmental impact of travellers millions of trips at a time
Presented by Dr Maithili Mehta, The University of Queensland
Friday 28 June – Forgan Smith (Building 01), E109, UQ St Lucia
2.30pm – 3.30pm AEST
Optimising transport networks is a challenging field. Special events, such as sporting matches and music concerts often create massive disruptions to these networks on top of existing commuter traffic. At You.Smart.Thing. we are continually developing new ways to interpret current and historical data. We use this to provide predictions to event organisers to allow them to provide optimised transportation options to and from their event.
Using algorithmic development and data science, we consider the data available at present, new ways to gather data, and techniques to analyse the data to provide insights into ways to optimise the network. A primary factor in our analysis of the data will be to predict load on the public transportation network to allow a shift of travel, from driving to more sustainable options.
Dr Maithili Mehta
Mathematician and software engineer by day, yoga teacher by night. Maithili Mehta completed her Ph.D. in mathematical physics at the University of Queensland in 2003. She went on to a career in software engineering, specialising in optimisation algorithms. She is currently the lead of software engineering and innovation at You.Smart.Thing. When she isn’t solving complex journey planning problems, you can find her hanging out with her kids, reading, singing or yoga-ing!
Careers Session
Friday 28 June – Science Learning Centre
3.30pm – 5.30pm AEST | Afternoon tea provided
Explore diverse careers pathways in mathematical sciences by talking to others who are in the field. Ask questions and find out about post-university jobs for students in the maths, stats and data sciences and related disciplines.
This is a FREE in-person event aimed at tertiary students.
Speakers
- Adam Brown, Quantitative Systematic Trader, SIG
- Iadine Chadès, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO
- Adrian Dudek, Head of Academic Partnerships, Optiver
- Katrina Hibberd, Portfolio Manager, Australian Retirement Trust
- Maithili Mehta, Software Engineer and Innovation Lead, You.Smart.Thing
- Sam Machen, Manager of Quantitative Modeling, Jacobi Strategies
- Aaron Smith, Trading Risk and Valuations Manager, CleanCo Queensland
- Aria Zarei, Head of Global Operations, Pinnacle
- Master of Ceremonies: Associate Professor Yoni Nazarathy, The University of Queensland
Friday Night Social
Friday 28 June – Saint Lucy’s Caffe e Cucina, Blair Drive, St Lucia
6.00pm AEST | Pizza and soft drinks provided
At the end of the first week of the program, sit back and relax over an informal dinner with your new friends before settling into the weekend in Brisbane!
Queensland Brain Institute
Monday 1 July
Lecture: 1.00pm, Room E109, Forgan Smith Building (01), UQ, St Lucia campus | Tour: 2.00pm – 4.00pm (limited spaces available)
Learn about the some of the new innovations and ground-breaking projects being run by the Queensland Brain Institute.
Boeing Presentation
Monday 1 July – Boeing Centre, UQ St Lucia Campus
2.15pm – 3.30pm
Chat to the team and Boeing and delve into some of the latest research being conducted at the Boeing Centre.
Optiver Trade-a-thon
Wednesday 3 July – Room E109, Forgan Smith Building (01), UQ, St Lucia campus
1.00pm – 2.30pm | Lunch provided at 12.00pm
Solve puzzles, get clues and put it all together to make trading decisions on Optiver’s trading platform DeltaDash. Get ready to mathematically race against your peers in this competition for the top spot. Bring some pen and paper along with a mobile phone.
Participant Talks – Final
Sponsored by Optiver
Wednesday 3 July – Room E109, Forgan Smith Building (Building 01), UQ St Lucia campus
3.00pm – 4.30pm AEST
Share your work with peers around the country, build networks and be in the running to win up to $400 in prizes!
Diversity in STEM Event
Wednesday 3 July – Science Learning Centre, Priestley Building (67), UQ St Lucia campus
4.45pm, event to begin 5.00pm AEST | Refreshments provided
Join us to celebrate diversity in our STEM community.
This is a FREE in-person event aimed at tertiary students in the maths, stats and data sciences and related disciplines. Registrations are essential.
Panelists
- Morenikeji Deborah Akinlotan, Queensland University of Technology
- Jie Yen Fan, Monash University
- Mel Robertson-Dean, The University of Queensland
- Christina Tang-Fujiwara, VivCourt Trading
- Liam Timms, The University of Melbourne
- Master of Ceremonies, Meagan Carney, The University of Queensland
This is an in-person event only. It will not be recorded or live broadcast.