NZMASP2023

2023

New Zealand
Mathematics and Statistics
Postgraduate Conference

29 Nov.-1 Dec. 2023 in Wellington

Code of Conduct

Conference Programme

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Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington

This year the conference is being planned by students from Victoria University of Wellington.

The New Zealand Mathematics and Statistics Postgraduate society organizes an annual conference for students from around Aotearoa. While maintaining a high standard of excellence, with superb plenary speakers, the NZMASP conference is a more relaxed and social student conference which emphasizes networking and developing friendships alongside the sharing of knowledge. Most of New Zealand’s universities are separated from each other by a considerable distance. For the last two decades, the NZMASP conference has been instrumental in creating friendships and connections between mathematics and statistics postgraduate students from these different universities which last well beyond their studies. The conference serves as a platform for students to deliver their research to a general mathematics audience, and many cherish this event for the constructive feedback they receive in preparation for international conferences and provisional year reviews. We welcome anyone with special considerations (e.g. disabilities, bringing children, dietary, cultural) attending the conference. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to discuss how we can assist you.

Invited Speakers

Geertrui Van de Voorde

Geertrui Van de Voorde is a pure mathematician. Her primary research interests lie in finite geometry, an area within combinatorics. Her research mostly deals with interesting substructures within finite projective spaces. What makes these point sets interesting is their intersection properties, the groups acting on them, and/or their links with problems from finite field theory, coding theory, or graph theory.

She got her PhD at Ghent University, Belgium, in 2010. In 2017, after taking up postdoctoral positions at VUB (Free University Brussels) and Ghent University, she moved to New Zealand in 2017 to start as a lecturer at University of Canterbury.

Lauren Smith

Lauren Smith completed her BSc, MSc and PhD at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. From there she held postdoc positions at Northwestern University and the University of Sydney as well as working briefly at the CSIRO (the Australian Government Research Organisation). Her first postdoc used piecewise isometry theory to study mixing in granular flows. In her second postdoc she developed model reduction methods for networks of coupled oscillators. She joined the Department of Mathematics at the University of Auckland in 2021

Charlotte Jones-Todd

I am a statistician by trade and spend my working days researching and teaching statistics. My research focus is on spatial statistics; modelling the patterns and movements of events in space and over time. When teaching I love finding new ways to get everybody as enthusiastic about stats as I am!

Outside of work, I spend most of my time running around after my pets. I have a Hungarian Vizsla puppy called Cai. I am also an avid horse lover. I have a horse, Nymph, who I enjoy trail riding and a Shetland pony called Norna, who is her best friend.

Sinapi Taeao

Sinapi hails from the beautiful island of Samoa. She is a Deputy Principal at Sacred Heart College, Lower Hutt. She teaches Mathematics and Statistics, Religious Studies, Gagana Samoa and Japanese to all year levels. She is part of the NZQA Taupulega Pacific advisory group, established to progress and achieve the goals of the NZQA action plan for pacific learner success, Takiala Pasifika 2020-2023. Sinapi holds a Master of Education from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, and is co-author of an article titled “‘Tu’utu’u le upega i le loloto – cast the net into deeper waters’: using research and practice to rethink mathematics pedagogy”

Robin Averill

Associate Professor Robin Averill works in mathematics education and initial teacher education at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. Robin is an experienced secondary school mathematics teacher who has worked with academics, postgraduate students, student teachers, and teachers. She has carried out research in culturally sustaining education and mathematics education and published extensively . Robin is particularly keen on people having enticing, energising, and powerful experiences of learning and achievement in mathematics and statistics.

Michell Shamu

I graduated in Economics and a minor in Actuarial Science from Victoria University of Wellington and currently work at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as a Statistical Analyst in the Data, Statistics and Analytics Department. I enjoy working with numbers and providing insights in a way that is intriguing and engaging, communication is also one of my interests. Outside of work, I spend my time learning new African dances as a way to keep in touch with my culture and enjoy being in nature which is very abundant in New Zealand.

Gabriel Pan

I am a graduate analyst at Te Pūtea Matua, working in the Deposit Taker Statistics team. I primarily work with mortgage statistics – in particular, we look at the amount of risky lending a bank is doing as a proportion of its mortgage commitments and compare various borrower groups during a given reference time period. We also work with the Data Development and Policy teams to develop frameworks for banks around this higher risk lending.

I’m a relative newbie at the bank (and to Wellington!) – I only joined in February, having just completed my masters at the start of 2023 at the University of Canterbury.”

Agenda

Tuesday 28th Nov.	Evening	Casual Math Crafts feat. Hexaflexagons by Grace

Wednesday 29th Nov.	Daytime	Conference Meeting
	Evening	Main social event at Counter Culture

Thursday 30th Nov.	Daytime	Conference Meeting
	Evening	Round table meeting open to everyone to discuss the present and future of the NZMASP conference

Friday 1st Dec.	Daytime	Conference Meeting
	Evening	Prize-giving (and then going to the pub for whoever is keen and still in town)