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Emeritus Professor Phil Pollett has research interests in Markov process theory, and mathematical modelling in population biology, ecology, epidemiology, seismology, chemical kinetics and telecommunications.

He holds an honours degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Adelaide and a PhD degree in Applied Probability from the University of Cambridge. He joined the then Department of Mathematics in 1987 as Senior Lecturer, having previously held positions at the University of Adelaide, Murdoch University and University College of Cardiff. He was promoted to Reader in 1993 and to Professor in 2004.

His research is recognized internationally for significant contributions to Markov process theory, and mathematical modelling. This research has been supported by 12 ARC Large/Discovery/Linkage grants. He was a Chief Investigator (2014-2021) within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistics Frontiers (ACEMS), and was a Chief Investigator (2002-2014) within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems (MASCOS). In 1993, he was awarded the Moran Medal by the Australian Academy of Science for distinguished research in Applied Probability.

Phil Pollett has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society, Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability, Stochastic Models, and The Annals of Applied Probability, and has served on the organizing committees of several major international conferences. He devised the Probability Web, recognized as the main Web resource for probabilists throughout the world, and one of the first academic web sites. He has a strong record of innovation in undergraduate teaching, and has guided the development of many postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows through supervision and collaboration.

Radislav (Slava) Vaisman is a faculty member in the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Queensland. Radislav earned his Ph.D. in Information System Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in 2014. Radislav’s research interests lie at the intersection of applied probability, statistics, and computer science. Such a multidisciplinary combination allows him to handle both theoretical and real-life problems, in the fields of machine learning, optimization, safety, and system reliability research, and more. He has published in top-ranking journals such as Statistics and Computing, INFORMS, Journal on Computing, Structural Safety, and IEEE Transactions on Reliability. The Stochastic Enumeration algorithm, which was introduced and analyzed by Radislav Vaisman, had led to the efficient solution of several problems that were out of reach of state of the art methods. In addition, he is an author of 3 books with three of the most prestigious publishers in the field, Wiley, Springer, and CRC Press. Radislav serves on the editorial board of the Stochastic Models journal.

Dr Huang has an Honours degree in Science (Advanced Mathematics) from the University of Sydney, and a PhD (Statistics) from the University of Chicago on a McCormick Fellowship. He previously lectured at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Technology Sydney, before moving to the University of Queensland where he is currently the Statistics Major Convenor and Mathematics Honours Coordinator.

Kazutoshi Yamazaki is a senior lecturer at the School of Mathematics and Physics, the University of Queensland. Before joining UQ in April 2022, he was an assistant professor at Osaka University and an associate professor at Kansai University. He is an applied probabilist with contributions in the field of insurance and financial mathematics and operations research. He has organised various conferences including the Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes session at the 65th AustMS 2021 annual meeting. He is also one of the organisers of Mathematics of Risk 2022, a MATRIX event to be held in December 2022. Kazutoshi obtained his PhD in Operations Research and Financial Engineering from Princeton University in 2009.

I am a mathematician working in dynamical systems and ergodic theory, with a focus on probabilistic limit theorems and rare events in deterministic and random systems. My research investigates how statistical laws emerge from complex long-term behaviour.

My work sits at the intersection of:

• Ergodic theory

• Dynamical systems

• Random dynamical systems

• Probability theory

• Limit theorems (e.g. central limit theorem, stable laws)

I study when deterministic or randomly driven systems exhibit classical probabilistic behaviour, such as the central limit theorem, as well as non-standard limit laws and heavy-tailed distributions. I have a particular interest in limit theorems governing rare and extreme events.

More broadly, my work bridges dynamical systems and probability theory, clarifying when complex systems behave “as if random” and when fundamentally different statistical phenomena arise.

Ross McVinish has research interests in applied probability, Bayesian statistics and mathematical modelling of complex systems in population biology.

He received his PhD from Queensland University of Technology in 2002.

He is currently an associate editor for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics.

Dr. Ian Wood’s research interests are in classification, bioinformatics, stochastic optimisation, machine learning and mixture models.

He received his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2004.

Jerzy Filar is Emeritus Professor of Applied Mathematics. Jerzy is a broadly trained applied mathematician with research interests spanning a spectrum of both theoretical and applied topics in Operations Research, Stochastic Modelling, Optimisation, Game Theory and Environmental Modelling. Professor Filar co-authored, or authored, five books or monographs and approximately 100 refereed research papers. He has a record of research grants/contracts with agencies and research institutes such as NSF, ARC, US EPA, World Resources Institute, DSTO, FRDC and the Sir Keith and Sir Ross Smith Foundation. He is editor-in-chief of Springer’s Environmental Modelling and Assessment and served on editorial boards of several other journals. He has supervised or co-supervised 29 PhD students. Jerzy's Erdos Number is 3.