February 2021

SMS Thesis Completions!

I am pleased to announce that Lindsay completed his defense this month and has nearly completed all the requirements for his thesis. In the mean time, Lindsay has accepted a job at StatsNZ and has unfortunately already left the office. We hope to touch base with him once graduation season rolls around. Lindsay's work is titled "Spatio-temporal modelling for non-stationary point referenced data".

We have also had a couple of Masters completions this month, Malcolm Jones and Nitay Ben-Shachar finished up their theses. Malcolm will be returning to work on his PhD so we will still see him around. Nitay has finished up and we hope he stays in touch to let us know about his future achievements. Malcolm's work is titled "Groupoids associated to inverse semi-groups" and Nitay's work is "Thermal Oscillations in Sea Ice and Soils".

All of the theses mentioned will be availiable through the library in due course for those that are interested.

Congratulations to everyone who finished their work this month! We look forward to celebrating your graduations and hope you stay in touch with us at the School.

Lift Upgrade

Those of us who were studying here in 2020 will be familiar with the woes of the constantly broken elevator. From the 22nd Fenruary, the Cotton South elevator will be out of action to replace the doors and hopefully return the lift to a fully operational state. The project is expected to take 3 weeks. While the work is underway, you will need to use the stairs or the Cotton North lift in Geography to get through the building.

The office will send a notification when the lift is operational again.

Careers Events - Starting up again!

The careers team have kicked off their workshops and other events for 2021. Please check out the noticeboards outside the graduate labs and out the front of the School Office to see what is on. You can also check out their events on CareerHub.

Upcoming Events

Discrete Mathematics Seminar Series Recommencing - Liam Joliffe - EA201, Thursday 25th February 3:30pm-4:30pm

The discrete mathematics (broadly defined) seminar will be recommencing from this Thursday. If you would like to stay up to date with the seminars, please email Liam Jolliffe to be included in the mailing list.

Foundationalism - Thomas Forster - KP24/202, Friday 26th February 9am-10am

Thomas is running a series of lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics. Foundationalism is the second of the 6 subjects being presented over 6 weeks. All seminars will be taking place on Fridays at 9am in KP24/202.

Remaining topics include:

• Constructivism (Friday 5th March, 9am in KP24/202)
• The intension/extension distinction and its applications (Friday 12th March, 9am in KP24/202)
• Formalisation and Concealment (Friday 19th March, 9am in KP24/202)
• The Axiom of Choice (Friday 26th March, 9am in KP24/202)

PGSA Tutors Mixer - Hunter Lounge, Wednesday 3rd March 5-7pm

Tutoring in trimester 1? Want to eat some free food and meet other tutors?

Join the PGSA and the Tutors' Network for a tutor mixer, 3 March at the Hunter Lounge, 5-7 PM. You can register here.

If you're new to tutoring, this will be a great opportunity to meet and learn from some of your peers. If you've been at it for awhile, this is a chance to connect with the Tutors' Network and hear a bit about who we are and what we've been up to.

Above all, this will be a fun opportunity to meet other tutors from around the university before the trimester gets going, and enjoy some free food on the PGSA.