Discovery Project success in Mathematics & Statistics

The School of Mathematics and Statistics is proud to announce that several of its academic staff have successfully secured Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grants for 2026.

Six grants were awarded among nine staff, with three grants through UNSW and three via other universities. Those confirmed for ARC Discovery Projects in 2026 are Dr Jason Atnip, Emeritus Professor Michael Cowling, Professor Yanan Fan, Professor Andrew Francis, Professor Gary Froyland, Dr Michael Hendriksen, Dr Pavel Krivitsky, Dr Sahani Pathiraja, and Professor Scott Sisson.

They collectively secured over $3.8 million in funding for their projects:

• Mathematics of Extremes in Random Dynamics for Catastrophic Event Risk (Jason Atnip; Meagan Carney; Gary Froyland).
• Exploiting new mathematical encodings of phylogenetic trees and networks (Andrew Francis; Mark Tanaka; Michael Hendriksen).
• Fixing the holes in Bayesian model comparison (Scott Sisson; Matthew Sutton; Yanan Fan; Francesca Crucinio).
• Harmonic analysis and spaces of functions on manifolds (Xuan Thinh Duong; Michael Cowling; Ji Li; The Anh Bui; Steven Hofmann; Brett Wick). Through Macquarie University.
• How personal networks build capacity to respond to compound natural hazards (Angela Guerrero Gonzalez; Michele Barnes; Pavel Krivitsky). Through Queensland University of Technology.
• Accelerating Bayesian Computations with Generative Diffusion Models (Sumeetpal Singh; Thang Bui; Sahani Pathiraja; Pierre Del Moral). Through University of Wollongong.

A flagship scheme for fundamental research and the largest scheme under the ARC National Competitive Grants Program, Discovery Projects supply funding of between $30,000 and $500,000 each year for up to five consecutive years. 

In total, 54 UNSW projects across seven faculties have been provided with more than $35 million in this round of competitive grants from the ARC.

Congratulations to our colleagues above!