By Ailbhe Cassidy, James Fannon, Fatima-Zahra Jaouimaa, Laura Keane, Joseph O'Brien, and Kleber Oliveira
The University of Limerick (UL) SIAM Student Chapter, together with the Mathematics Applications Consortium for Science and Industry (MACSI), hosted the 5th Irish SIAM Student Chapter Conference on January 18, 2019. The conference was aimed at postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers working in applied and industrial mathematics or related areas, and intended to build relationships and encourage collaboration between early career researchers from both Irish and UK institutions.
The conference consisted of two plenary talks and 10 contributed talks, and was attended by over 30 participants from nine academic institutions. We were very grateful to host two excellent plenary speakers, Dr. Matthew Hennessy from University of Oxford and Dr. Felicity Lamrock from the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics and Trinity College Dublin. A diverse range of problems were presented in the contributed talks, including topics such as tsunami modelling, complex networks, estimating the extent of biodiversity on Earth, and two-phase flow in oil wells. The full list of attendees and abstracts can be found in the conference booklet, which is available on our website.
The conference was opened by Professor James Gleeson, co-director of MACSI and faculty advisor for the UL SIAM Student Chapter. Our first plenary speaker, Dr. Hennessy, presented his work on the mathematical modelling of lithium-ion batteries, and illustrated how his original system of 19 PDEs used to describe the problem was systematically reduced down to 2 ODEs. After lunch, our second plenary speaker, Dr. Lamrock, discussed her role in the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics and the statistics to consider when appraising the cost-effectiveness of new drugs before they can be reimbursed by the Health Service Executive in Ireland. The conference was concluded by Dr. Lamrock, who presented the award for best student speaker to Roisin Hill of the National University of Ireland Galway, for her talk on adapted a posteriori meshes for Burgers' equation.
We are very grateful for the generous funding we received from several bodies to make this event possible. We would like to acknowledge the support of Mathematics for Industry Network (MI-NET) through COST Action TD1409, MACSI, the UL Faculty of Science and Engineering, and of course SIAM for their continued support of the UL SIAM Student Chapter.
Ailbhe Cassidy is a PhD student at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Limerick, working in the area of complex networks. She is the secretary of the University of Limerick SIAM Student Chapter. James Fannon is a 3rd year PhD student at MACSI (Mathematics Applications Consortium for Science and Industry), University of Limerick, working in the area of geophysical fluid dynamics. He is currently president of the University of Limerick SIAM Student Chapter. Fatima-Zahra Jaouimaa is a PhD student at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Limerick, working in the area of survival analysis. She is the treasurer of the University of Limerick SIAM Student Chapter. Laura Keane is a research assistant at MACSI, University of Limerick, working on the mathematical modelling of groundwater contamination. She is a committee member of the University of Limerick SIAM Student Chapter. Joseph O’Brien is currently a PhD student at MACSI, University of Limerick, working in the area of information diffusion on complex networks. He is currently vice president of the University of Limerick SIAM Student Chapter. Kleber Oliveira is a PhD student based in MACSI, University of Limerick. He works on social spreading phenomena under the supervision of Prof. James Gleeson. He is the webmaster for the University of Limerick SIAM Student Chapter.