Three Mathematics students win the 2022 University Medal
They were awarded University Medals across Applied Mathematics, Pure Mathematics and Statistics.
Published on the 21 February 2023 by Susannah Waters
We are thrilled to announce that three Mathematics and Statistics students were awarded 2022 University Medals - across Applied Mathematics, Pure Mathematics and Statistics.
The 2022 medallists are Jason Lambe (Statistics), Noah Vinod (Applied Mathematics) and Chris Zeng (Pure Mathematics). The most distinguished academic award to be bestowed on an undergraduate, the University Medal recognises exceptional achievement.
"It is not every year that we have recipients from each department", said UNSW Mathematics and Statistics Honours Director A/Prof Chris Angstmann. "This is a tremendous success for each of the students and they deserve our congratulations".
Jason Lambe (Advanced Maths/Economics - Statistics)
“Scoring an HD grade with 90+ marks in all UG courses he has taken, Jason has shown stellar performance in coursework typical of university medallist students", said Dr Feng Chen, Jason's Honours supervisor. "In his Honours thesis, Jason did some impressive novel theoretical work studying the asymptotic properties of the renewal Hawkes process and the maximum likelihood estimator of its parameters. Jason exhibited remarkable mathematical dexterity as well as dedication and perseverance. It has been a pleasure and privilege to be Jason’s Honours supervisor”.
Noah Vinod (Advanced Maths - Applied Mathematics)
“Noah is an outstanding student", said Noah's Honours supervisor, Professor Thanh Tran. "This can be seen not only from his coursework marks but also from his Honours thesis, which is a substantive and very innovative piece of work on the more theoretical side of Applied Mathematics. The results that Noah achieved in one Honours year could be a high target for first year PhD students. He produced difficult theorems using advanced tools in functional analysis. This shows his talent for mathematics.”
Noah has just commenced a PhD with UNSW Mathematics and Statistics, again working with Prof Thanh Tran.
Chris Zeng (Advanced Maths/Actuarial - Pure Mathematics)
“Chris is a very talented young mathematician", said supervisor A/Prof Alina Ostafe. "In his thesis Chris studied the well-known Uniform Boundedness Conjecture in arithmetic dynamics, which in simple terms asks for a uniform bound for the number of K-rational preperiodic points of a rational map defined over a number field K. This conjecture is widely open even for the simplest case of quadratic polynomials over rational numbers, which reflects the difficulty of this problem. I was very impressed by his independence, remarkable mathematical strength and curiosity. What mostly impressed me is his vast inquisitiveness and novelty into creating connections between various problems and methods, many new to me as well. We still continue our mathematical discussions and have plans for future projects.”
A very warm congratulations to Jason, Noah and Chris!