News and events

  • Congratulations to Dr. Ke Zhao

    Our former Statistics MSc student Ke Zhao, Ph.D. has been promoted to a position as a Portfolio Analyst, Portfolio Management, Accountability and Operations, Advanced Education for the Government of Alberta, Canada. Congratulations to Dr. Ke Zhao!”

  • Math kits made by Brock students for young learners

    Brock students are working to make math equal fun by adding a dash of creativity.

    Students in a third-year math course, Mathematics at the Junior/Intermediate/Senior Level, have been working to create kits to help make math more accessible to young learners.

    Coinciding with National STEM Day, the first of three presentations related to the kits took place Nov. 8 and offered faculty, students and Let’s Talk Science Outreach at Brock volunteers a sneak peek into the hands-on, interactive math-based activities.

    The project, a new addition to the long-running Math 3P91 course, provides the class of future math educators an opportunity to apply the theoretical concepts they learn in class.

    For more details, please see the story in the Brock News.

  • Professor Buteau’s keynote presentation at 2017 APTICA research colloquium

    Professor Chantal Buteau will be giving the keynote presentation at the research colloquium of the  APTICA (L’Association pour l’avancement pédagogique des technologies de l’information et de la communication en Atlantique) 2017 annual congress taking place at University of Moncton on October 30 to November 4, 2017. Professor Buteau’s presentation is titled “Pensée informatique et mathématiques”. See http://www.aptica.ca/congres/colloque-en-recherche/.

  • Congratulations to Sarah Bax

    The Department of Mathematics and Statistics would like to congratulate our graduating MSc student, Sarah Bax, for being recognized with the Brock University Board of Trustees Spirit of Brock Medal at convocation. For more details, please see the story in the Brock News. Congratulations Sarah!

  • Symposium: Computational Thinking in Mathematics Education

    Professor Buteau is organizing a 3-day symposium, titled Computational Thinking in Mathematics Education, on October 13-15, 2017. The event, funded by the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, will be hosted at UOIT and is organized together with Dr Namukasa (UWO), Dr. Gadanidis (UWO), Dr. Kotsopoulos (Huron College), and Dr. Hughes (UOIT). A ‘Maker Day‘ workshop for prospective and in-service teachers will be hosted during the day on October 13, 2017 prior to the symposium. See the poster or ctmath.ca for more details or contact Professor Buteau.

    Symposium Poster

    UOIT Maker Day

    Live Streaming of Keynote speeches at CT in Math Ed Symposium, UOIT, Oshawa, October 12- 15, 2017.

    1. Live Streaming of Lyn English’s Keynote.
    Watch 
    Or 
    Keynote Speaker Lyn English
    Learning Innovation in STEM Education
    10/13/2017 7:00:00 PM
    1:30:00
    2. Live Streaming of Michelle Wilkerson’s  keynote
    or
    Keynote Speaker Michelle Wilkerson
    Computational Integration to Support Expression, Refinement, and Collective Knowledge in Classroom Communities
    10/14/2017 4:00:00 PM
    1:30:00
  • Seminar: Prof. Andries Engelbrecht

    When: Wednesday, September 20, 2017 – 11:00am – 12:00pm

    Brock University Computer Science Department Seminar Series

    presents

    Prof. Andries Engelbrecht

    University of Pretoria

    Pretoria, South Africa

    Heterogeneous Particle Swarm Optimizers: Scalability,
    Self-Adaptive Behaviors, and Dynamic Environments

    Abstract: Particles in the standard particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, and most of its modifications, follow the same behaviours. That is, particles implement the same velocity and position update rules. This means that particles exhibit the same search characteristics. Heterogeneous PSO (HPSO), on the other hand, allow particles to follow different search behaviours selected from a behaviour pool, thereby efficiently addressing the exploration–exploitation trade-off problem.

    This talk will provide an overview of very simple HPSO algorithms, and will provide empirical results to show that they are more efficient than the homogeneous PSO algorithms making up the behaviour pool of the HPSO algorithm. The talk will also discuss the HPSO scalability properties, and will present approaches to self-adaptive behaviour selection. The talk will end with an illustration of the performance of simple HPSO algorithms in dynamic environments.

    Professor Andries Engelbrecht is the South African Research Chair of Artificial Intelligence in the Computer Science Department, University of Pretoria

    Location of your event: H313
    Cost: $0.00

    Categories: Events

  • Mahsa Daneshmandmehrabani thesis defense

    When: July 17, 2017 – 1:00pm – 3:00pm

    Ms. Mahsa Daneshmandmehrabani will defend her M.Sc. on Monday July 17, 2017 at 1:00 PM in Mackenzie Chown C206.

    Abstract: We develop a recommendation algorithm for a local entertainment and ticket pro-vider company. The recommender system predicts the score of items, i.e. event, for each user. The special feature of these events, which makes them very differ-ent from similar settings, is that they are perishable: each event has a relatively short and specific lifespan. Therefore there is no explicit feedback available for a future event. Moreover, there is a very short description provided for each event and thus the keywords play a more than usual important role in categorizing each event. Moreover, we provide a hybrid algorithm that utilizes content-based and col-laborative filtering recommendations. We also present an axiomatic analysis of our model. These axioms are mostly derived from social choice theory.

    Location of your event: MCC206
    Cost: $0.00

    Categories: Events

  • Congratulations to Dr. Kihel

    Congratulations to Dr. Omar Kihel, who was the recipient of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science Award for Excellence in Teaching at today at Convocation. For more details, please see this article about the Convocation ceremony this morning in the Brock News.

    Congratulations Dr. Kihel!

    Categories: News

  • Congratulations to Ramona Rat

    On May 22, 2017, our former Statistics MSc Student Ramona Rat started a position as a Digital Analyst at Burberry’s headquarters in London, United Kingdom. Congratulations Ramona!

    Categories: News

  • Congratulations to Chi Ho Alex Cheung

    Our former Statistics MSc student Chi Ho Alex Cheung successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, ANALYSIS OF FLUID QUEUES USING LEVEL CROSSING METHODS, on May 26, 2017 at the University of Windsor. Alex has been hired to a full time position of Senior Data Scientist at the Precima company in Toronto starting in July of 2017. Congratulations to Alex!

    Categories: News