A leading institution for mathematics and statistics worldwide

UNSW frequently ranks among the top universities worldwide for mathematics and statistics.

In 2012, UNSW ranked first in Australia in the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities, and was positioned in the top 76-100 band overall. Our QS World University Ranking for 2012 saw us ranked 44th in the world for mathematics.  

Most prolific

UNSW tops a list of Australian institutions that contributed the greatest number of papers to the main field of mathematics between 2005 and 2009. According to the table, published by Thomson Reuters, UNSW contributed nearly 400 papers in mathematics during that period.

Highly cited

For the decade 2001-11, UNSW ranked second nationally amongst mathematics schools in both total citations and citations per paper in mathematics.

Strongly funded

In the past two rounds of ARC Discovery Projects awarded in the Mathematical Sciences, UNSW School members have earnt $3.9 million. This is the second highest amount nationally.

Excellence in Research Australia

Highlighting its breadth of research, the School was one of only three nationally to be assessed over all five of the FOR subcodes that classify mathematics and statistics research. It had the second highest aggregate score in Australia and an overall assessment of 'above world standard'.

Measures of Esteem

Several School members have been awarded medals for their distinguished contributions to research in recent years.

Associate Professor Gary Froyland was awarded a 2012 ARC Future Fellowship for his research project, "A probabilistic and geometric understanding of transport and metastability in mathematical geophysical flows".

Associate Professor David Warton also received a 2012 ARC Future Fellowship, for his research project "Advancing tools for the analysis of high-dimensional data in ecology". Future Fellowships aim to attract and retain the finest mid-career researchers.

Professor Fedor Sukochev received a 2012 Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award (DORA) fellowship for his work in non commutative probability and analysis.

A 2012 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) was conferred to Dr David Harvey for his project, “Counting solutions to equations over fields of large characteristic”. This esteemed award supports and advances promising early career researchers, promoting enhanced opportunities for diverse career pathways.

Dr Josef Dick, a Senior Lecturer and QEII Fellow in the School, was the co-winner of the 2013 Prize for Achievement in Information Based Complexity (IBC). He was also the recipient of the 2012 Christopher Heyde medal for his work in numerical integration. This is a prestigious award by the Academy of Science for mathematical research, specifically this year in the areas of applied, computational and financial mathematics.

The Australian Academy of Science awarded its 2011 Hannan Medal for research in applied mathematics and computational mathematics to Emeritus Professor Colin Rogers for his work on nonlinear dynamics relevant to physical systems.

The 2011 Moran Medal for research in statistics, also from the Australian Academy of Science, went to Associate Professor Scott Sisson (jointly with Dr Mark Tanaka), for his work on computational statistics and extreme value theory. Scott is an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow in the School.

ANZIAM (Australia and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics) awarded its 2011 JH Michell Medal to Dr Frances Kuo. Dr Kuo is a former ARC Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow. Her work is in quasi-Monte Carlo methods for high-dimensional integration.

Publications by the School on MathSciNet

A listing of UNSW School of Mathematics and Statistics publications is available on MathSciNet (please note: a MathsSciNet subscription is required for access).