Prominent honours won by School members in 2000 included the award of Member of the Order of Australia (AM) to Professor Gani and the election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London of Professor Peter Hall. Professor Gani also won the inaugural Moyal Medal and delivered the inaugural Moyal lecture at Macquarie University. A book entitled "Exploring Chaos: Theory and Experiment" by Dr Brian Davies was honoured by selection in the annual Choice Outstanding Academic Titles list. The retirement of Professor Robinson at the end of 2000 was celebrated through a conference in his honour in June.
The School had a substantial range of grant successes in 2000. These began with funds for a Data Mining Laboratory from The Faculties Research Infrastructure pool. This was followed by funds from the Institute Planning Committee (IPC) for a joint Centre for Bioinformation Science with the John Curtin School of Medical Research, and funds from The Australian Partnership in Advanced Computing (APAC) towards a Data Mining Research Program and an Educational Program in Computational Science and Engineering. The latter two are part of an ANU Computation Centre. Seeding funds from the Vice-Chancellor's Plan for Growth for appointments in bioinformatics and financial mathematics were also awarded. These successes should pave the way for exciting future developments in Advanced Computation and Bioinformatics. On the basic research front, the School continued its long record of ARC success, accounting for four out of the eighteen Large Program Grants awarded in the Mathematical Sciences in Australia.
The above grants will lead to new appointments and precious new blood in the School. At the same time progress was made towards new appointments in the wake of recent retirements. Dr Markus Hegland accepted appointment in the CMA Advanced Computation and Modelling Program and two further positions in mathematics were advertised in the Institute component of the CMA. These replacements are not enough to adequately counter past losses and in this respect the Department of Mathematics in particular is still in a critical position.
At the end of 2000 I completed a nine year period as Dean of the School of Mathematical Sciences. During this period I was always heartened both by the extremely strong performances of School members in research, teaching and academic service and by their continual commitment to the ideal of linking teaching and research embraced through our structure. On the negative side, it was disappointing that such a natural affinity never seemed administratively comfortable in the overall ANU scheme, despite the strong encouragement back in 1988 when we were planning the SMS. It was also disappointing to witness during these years the sharp contrast between, on one hand, the booming opportunities for mathematicians abroad and their prominent roles in shaping overseas development in business and technology and, on the other, the dismal attrition within Australia and its resultant undermining of intellectual resources. Hopefully new administrations can redress some of the damage that has been done.
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