UOW mathematician wins 2008 ANZIAM Medal

Head of the Nanomechanics Group in the School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics at the University of Wollongong, Professor Jim Hill, has been awarded the 2008 ANZIAM Medal.

ANZIAM is Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics, which is a division of the Australian Mathematical Society. It is the major body which promotes industrial and applied mathematics.

The ANZIAM Medal is the major award given by the society, and it is awarded on the basis of research achievements, activities enhancing applied and industrial mathematics and contributions to ANZIAM.

Head of UOW’s School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics, Associate Professor Tim Marchant, said the award confirmed Professor Hill as one of Australia’s leading applied mathematicians.

Those awarded the medal must have given outstanding service to the profession of applied mathematics in Australia or New Zealand through their research achievements and through activities enhancing applied or industrial mathematics, and must be a long-term member and valuable contributor to the organisation.

Professor Hill is currently working in applied mathematical modelling in nanotechnology, including interacting molecular nanostructures, nanofluidics and nanoscale heating.

He has been funded for more than a dozen major research projects, directed towards industrial applications, such as the rubber, steel, particulate materials and nanotechnology industries.

Professor Hill has completed one five-year term of an ARC Senior Research Fellowship on the topic of granular materials, and he is presently the holder of another five-year ARC Professorial Fellowship, on the topic of Nanomechanics.

Since the early nineties, and including the ARC Professorial Fellowships, he has received almost $4 million in research funding from the Australian Research Council.

Professor Hill was awarded a Doctor of Science in January 1988, from the University of Queensland, for mathematical contributions to the subjects of finite elasticity, double-diffusion theory and heat-diffusion moving boundary problems.

In 1992 he was made a Companion of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, which is a status equivalent to a Fellow for persons not having an engineering background. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

For a period of two years he held the position of Chair of ANZIAM, and for a long period of time, he has always encouraged and financially supported his students and post-doctoral appointments to participate in all ANZIAM activities, especially their annual conferences and the Mathematics in Industry Study Groups. He has recently served as Vice-President of the Australian Mathematical Society for a period of two years.

Professor Hill has over many years successfully mentored a very large number of young people, including honours students, PhD students, post-doctoral appointees and younger colleagues. He has supervised 14 completed PhD students, who have for the most part completed their degrees within a three-year time period, and he has trained well over 20 post-doctoral appointees.

He is, or has been, an Associate Editor of the five major international Applied Mathematical journals: the IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics (Oxford University Press), the Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics (Oxford University Press), the Journal of Engineering Mathematics (Kluwer), the Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids (Sage Science Press), and the ANZIAM Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (Australian Mathematical Society) -- the latter journal for a period in excess of 25 years.

Professor Hill has worked in many areas of applied mathematics, including finite elasticity, heat transfer, diffusion, moving boundary problems, differential equations, granular materials and more recently in nanotechnology. He has published five books, and well over 200 research publications in applied mathematics, theoretical mechanics and lately in theoretical physics, all of which appear in fully refereed international journals.

In his current role at UOW his work deals with the four main areas of modelling the mechanical behaviour of carbon nanotubes, nanofluidics, enhanced heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids, and maximising the electrorheological effect of nanofluids.