Janet Thomas

Last updated

Janet (Jan) Thomas is an Australian mathematician and educator. Together with Tony Guttman and Garth Gaudry she established the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI). She served as its executive officer until 2011. [1] She is currently a senior fellow of AMSI.

Thomas was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2013 Australia Day Honours for service to the mathematical sciences. [2]

Thomas began her career lecturing in the School of Education, Victoria University, Australia. Throughout her career Thomas has held various leadership positions within the mathematical sciences in Australia. She was the Executive Officer of the Australian Mathematical Society from 1996 to 2003. She established the Australian Council of Heads of Mathematical Sciences, [3] this group is now administered by AMSI.

From 1997 to 2001 Thomas was Vice-President of Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), (now Science & Technology Australia). In 2000 Thomas authored the report Mathematical Science in Australia: Looking for a Future [4] published by the FASTS. This report made a significant impact, and was quoted in parliamentary speeches.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Hopper</span> American computer scientist, mathematician, and US Navy admiral (1906–1992)

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first linkers. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and the FLOW-MATIC programming language she created using this theory was later extended to create COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Wild (Australian scientist)</span> Australian radio-physicist (1923–2008)

Dr John Paul Wild AC CBE MA ScD (Cantab.) FRS FTSE FAA was a British-born Australian scientist. Following service in World War II as a radar officer in the Royal Navy, he became a radio astronomer in Australia for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the fore-runner of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). In the 1950s and 1960s he made discoveries based on radio observations of the Sun. In the late 1960s and early 1970s his team built and operated the world's first solar radio-spectrographs and subsequently the Culgoora radio-heliograph, near Narrabri, New South Wales. The Paul Wild Observatory at Culgoora is named after him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Mathematical Society</span> Mathematical society

The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The current president is Volker Mehrmann, professor at the Institute for Mathematics at the Technical University of Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mina Rees</span> American mathematician

Mina Spiegel Rees was an American mathematician. She was the first female President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1971) and head of the mathematics department of the Office of Naval Research of the United States. Rees was a pioneer in the history of computing and helped establish funding streams and institutional infrastructure for research. Rees was also the founding president and president emerita of the Graduate School and University Center at CUNY. She received the Public Welfare Medal, the highest honor of the National Academy of Sciences; the King's Medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom (UK) and at least 18 honorary doctorates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Quinn</span> Australian-American physicist

Helen Rhoda Arnold Quinn is an Australian-born particle physicist and educator who has made major contributions to both fields. Her contributions to theoretical physics include the Peccei–Quinn theory which implies a corresponding symmetry of nature and contributions to the search for a unified theory for the three types of particle interactions. As Chair of the Board on Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences, Quinn led the effort that produced A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas—the basis for the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by many states. Her honours include the Dirac Medal of the International Center for Theoretical Physics, the Oskar Klein Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, appointment as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia, the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics from the American Physical Society, the Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics from the American Institute of Physics, and the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl Praeger</span> Australian mathematician

Cheryl Elisabeth Praeger is an Australian mathematician. Praeger received BSc (1969) and MSc degrees from the University of Queensland (1974), and a doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1973 under direction of Peter M. Neumann. She has published widely and has advised 27 PhD students. She is currently Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Western Australia. She is best known for her works in group theory, algebraic graph theory and combinatorial designs.

The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) was established in 2002 for collaboration in the mathematical sciences to strengthen mathematics and statistics, especially in universities.

Jan C. A. Boeyens (1934–2015) was a South African chemist and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nalini Joshi</span> Australian mathematician

Nalini Joshi is an Australian mathematician. She is a professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney, the first woman in the School to hold this position, and is a past-president of the Australian Mathematical Society. Joshi is a member of the School's Applied Mathematics Research Group. Her research concerns integrable systems. She was awarded the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship in 2012. Joshi is also the Vice-President of the International Mathematical Union, and is the first Australian to hold this position.

The Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal is awarded at most every two years by the Australian Academy of Science to a mathematician or physicist for his or her outstanding research accomplishments. It is named after Thomas Ranken Lyle, an Irish mathematical physicist who became a professor at the University of Melbourne. The award takes the form of a bronze medal bearing the design of the head of Thomas Lyle, as sculpted by Rayner Hoff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Zelinsky</span>

Alexander ‘Alex’ Zelinsky, is an Australian computer scientist, systems engineer and roboticist. His career spans innovation, science and technology, research and development, commercial start-ups and education. Professor Zelinsky is Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Newcastle joining the university in November 2018. He was the Chief Defence Scientist of Australia from March 2012 until November 2018. As Chief Defence Scientist he led Defence Science and Technology for Australia's Department of Defence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michelle Simmons</span> British-Australian quantum physicist

Michelle Yvonne Simmons, is a Scientia Professor of Quantum Physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales and has twice been an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow. She is the Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology and is recognised internationally as the creator of the field of atomic electronics. She was the inaugural editor-in-chief of npj Quantum Information, an academic journal publishing articles in the emerging field of quantum information science. On 25 January 2018, Simmons was named as the 2018 Australian of the Year for her work and dedication to quantum information science. On 10 June 2019, Simmons was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours in recognition of her "distinguished service to science education as a leader in quantum and atomic electronics and as a role model."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara R. Holland</span> Australian mathematician

Barbara Ruth Holland is a New Zealand born Australian scientist. She is a Professor of mathematics and member of the Theoretical Phylogenetics Group at the School of Mathematics & Physics at the University of Tasmania. She has made substantial contributions to the methods for reconstructing phylogenetic trees from DNA and protein sequence data. Holland has published over 50 journal articles, presented over 30 invited or keynote lectures, refereed five conference proceedings, 2 book chapters and 1 book review. She is a senior editor of the scientific journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Vaughan</span> American Mathematician (1910–2008)

Dorothy Jean Johnson Vaughan was an American mathematician and human computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, the first African-American woman to receive a promotion and supervise a group of staff at the center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Di McCarthy</span> New Zealand scientist

Dianne Christine McCarthy is a New Zealand scientist and professional director, who was the chief executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand between 2007 and 2014. She lives in Blenheim.

Janice Clare Reid is an Australian academic and medical anthropologist, who has specialised in Aboriginal and refugee health. She was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Sydney from 1998 to 2013.

Inge Koch is an Australian statistician, author, and advocate for gender diversity in mathematics. Koch is the author of Analysis of Multivariate and High-Dimensional Data (2013), and is a Professor in Statistics at the University of Western Australia. Previously, she has worked as an associate professor at University of Adelaide and taught statistics at the University of New South Wales.

Kerry Anne Landman is an Australian applied mathematician, known for her cross-disciplinary research. Over her research career she established and led collaborations across engineering, industry and biological fields. In 2007, she became the first woman professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne. She retired in 2015 and is now an Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne.

Jacqui Ramagge is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science at Durham University and Honorary Professor of Mathematics at the University of Sydney. She was born in London, emigrated to Australia in 1991, and returned to the UK to take up the position at Durham University in 2020.

Asha Rao is a mathematician and expert in cyber security. She is the Associate Dean, or Head of Department, of Mathematical Sciences and Professor at RMIT University.

References

  1. Thomas, Jan (2013). "Ms Jan Thomas Order of Australia Medal" (PDF). No. 40(1). The Australian Mathematical Society. Gazette.
  2. "MEDAL (OAM) OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA IN THE GENERAL DIVISION, Media Notes (S-Z)" (PDF).
  3. "Australian Council of Heads if Mathematical Sciences".
  4. Jan Thomas. "Mathematical Science in Australia: Looking for a Future" (PDF). FASTS.