Minor

Computational Mathematics News

Justin Wan appointed Director of the CCMIC:
Dr. Justin Wan, an Associate Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, has been appointed the next Director of the Centre for Computational Mathematics in Industry and Commerce (CCMIC). Justin’s three-year appointment to the Centre will begin this July. He was “surprised and honoured” to hear the news and also “thankful that the Faculty has put such a faith and trust in [him] to take up the position.”

“I feel happy and excited to contribute to the computational mathematics community in this new role. Computational mathematics is my field of research. It’s a fascinating field that reaches out to all kinds of applications and yet its importance and existence are often overlooked,” says Justin.

“My plans for the Centre are to strengthen the computational mathematics efforts in the faculty and draw interest at the undergraduate, graduate, and research levels. I look forward to this new position and hope that it will be a rewarding experience for myself and the community.” We wish Justin a successful term as director of the CCMIC.

New CM Graduate Advisor:
Dr. Arne Storjohann has taken over the position of Graduate Advisor for the Computational Mathematics program effective March 1, 2010. We wish Arne every success in this position.

Graduation News:
The first recipients of a Master's in Computational Mathematics graduated from our program in August 2009.

Scholarship News:
Fall 2009 Comp Math Undergrad Entrance Awards and Winter 2010 Upper Year scholarship Awards recipients have been announced. See here for details.

Four CM affiliates win Ontario Early Researcher Award (August 13, 2007)

Four affiliates of the Center for Computational Mathematics in Industry and Commerce have received the Early Researcher Award from the Government of Ontario. This program "aims to help promising, recently-appointed Ontario researchers build their research teams of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and research associates. The ultimate goal of the program is to improve Ontario's ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent in high-priority economic areas."

The research areas of the four winners are described as follows:

Dr. Hans De Sterck is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo who is developing efficient algorithms and software for scientific research on large distributed computing systems. Using Ontario's advanced computer networks, SHARCNET and ORION, Dr. De Sterck will pursue research in two intriguing areas: investigating how planets become hospitable to the development of early life forms and investigating the origins of primitive ribonucleic acid (RNA) metabolisms. The pursuit of these areas requires algorithms that efficiently use computational resources to solve the problems of research interest - a focus of Dr. De Sterck's research.

Systems biology is an emerging discipline devoted to understanding the biochemical networks that molecular biologists are uncovering within the cell - and their functions. Dr. Brian Ingalls, an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, is researching tools to develop and analyze models of biological phenomena that can be used to investigate cellular behaviour. His work will lead to improved treatments for diseases and will be of economic benefit in agriculture, bioremediation and bioprocess engineering.

Developing efficient approximation algorithms for problems in combinatorial optimization is the focus of research being conducted by Dr. Jochen Konemann. The field of combinatorial optimization investigates and determines the best arrangements for sets of objects, such as protocols in network design. Dr. Konemann is an assistant professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo and his research is of great interest to companies in the information technology sector, where problems in combinatorial optimization relating to the internet are common.

Algorithms, a well-defined set of rules, are used to solve large-scale problems. Dr. Arne Storjohann, an assistant professor with the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, is discovering new algorithms that will make efficient use of computer time and memory. If successful, rigorously tested new algorithms will be available to researchers and practitioners in the mathematical, scientific and engineering communities in Ontario in the form of computer algebra software. As a result, users will be able to solve larger, more complex problems at greater speed and increased efficiency.