If you are keen on Mathematics and have achieved good results in years 1 to 3, you may consider embarking on an Honours year. If you are an Advanced Mathematics or Advanced Science student, then Honours is built into your program. For all other students, if you are keen on Mathematics and have achieved good results in years 1 to 3, you should consider embarking on an Honours year.

Below you can find some specific information about Pure Mathematics Honours.

For other information about doing Honours in Pure Mathematics, see the Honours page and the list of available Honours courses. Note that MATH5605 Functional Analysis and MATH5735 Modules and Representation Theory are core subjects which should be taken by all Pure Honours students.

Honours Coordinator - Pure

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Lee.

Dr Lee Zhao

E: l.zhao@unsw.edu.au
Office: H13 Lawrence East 4106

Pure Mathematics Project Areas

Every Pure Mathematics Honours and postgraduate student is required to complete a project under the supervision of a member of staff. For PhD students this is almost always a member of the Pure Mathematics Department, but for Honours and Masters students it is possible to arrange for supervision by a suitable academic in Applied Mathematics or Statistics. For some projects it may even be appropriate to involve an academic from elsewhere in the University (although in this case we will require a co-supervisor from Mathematics). Students wishing to pursue a more multidisciplinary project should discuss their options with the Honours Coordinator or postgraduate advisor as early as possible.

Listed below are academics who are willing to supervise Pure Mathematics Honours students, together with their areas of interest. We recommend that you speak to a number of people before making your choice of supervisor. Full-time students doing Honours or the Masters degree should have decided on a project before the start of their final year.

At times staff members may be on leave for a significant period and so will be unlikely to be taking on Honours students.

The topics listed on this page should only be used as a guide to help you start finding a supervisor. It should be noted that most staff members are likely to be more restrictive in the areas in which they are willing to supervise a PhD student than those in which they might supervise an Honours or Masters student.

Some recent projects can be found on this document, but please see the sections below for more recent project offerings. 

  • Michael Cowling

    • Harmonic analysis
    • Lie groups
    • Functional analysis

    Ian Doust

    • Operator theory
    • Banach space geometry

    Pinhas Grossman

    • C*-algebras
    • von Neumann algebras

    Denis Potapov

    • Noncommutative geometry
    • Noncommutative analysis
    • Harmonic analysis 

    Thomas Scheckter

    • Noncommutative harmonic analysis
    • Noncommutative probability and stochastic analysis 
    • Noncommutative ergodic theory

    Fedor Sukochev

    • Noncommutative functional analysis
    • Noncommutative geometry
    • Banach space geometry

    Norman Wildberger

    • Harmonic analysis
    • Hypergroups
  • David Angell

    • Number theory
    • Discrete mathematics and combinatorics

    Haris Aziz (School of Computer Science and Engineering)

    • Combinatorics and discrete mathematics
    • Applications of combinatorics to fair division and voting theory
    • Combinatorial optimization

    Thomas Britz

    • Discrete mathematics and combinatorics
    • Graph theory

    Arnaud Brothier

    • Operator Algebra
    • Group theory

    Peter Brown

    • Number theory

    Daniel Chan

    • Noncommutative algebra
    • Algebraic geometry
    • Commutative algebra
    • Homological algebra

    Diana Combe

    • Combinatorial designs
    • Graph theory and graph labellings

    Jie Du

    • Lie algebras and quantum groups
    • Representation theory
    • Combinatorics of Lie groups

    Catherine Greenhill

    • Graph theory
    • Random combinatorial objects (e.g. random graphs)
    • Combinatorial algorithms (e.g. Markov chain algorithms)

    Pinhas Grossman

    • Fusion categories
    • Planar algebras

    David Harvey

    • Number theory
    • Computational number theory

    Anita Liebenau

    • Ramsey theory
    • Graph theory

    Alina Ostafe

    • Number theory
    • Algebraic dynamical systems

    Igor Shparlinski

    • Number theory
    • Cryptography
    • Theoretical computer science
    • Quantum computation

    Mircea Voineagu

    • K-theory
    • Algebraic Geometry
    • Algebraic Topology
    • Homological Algebra

    Norman Wildberger

    • Geometry, including hyperbolic and elliptic geometry
    • Lie groups and representation theory

    Lee Zhao

    • Number theory
    • Analytic number theory
  • Peter Brown

    • History of mathematics

    Jim Franklin

    • Extreme risks
    • Philosophy of mathematics

    Jonathan Kress

    • Mathematical Physics

    John Steele

    • General relativity
  • Possible supervisors include:

    Gary Froyland (Applied)

    • Dynamical systems and ergodic theory
    • Optimisation

    Bruce Henry (Applied)

    • Multifractal analysis

    John Roberts (Applied)

    • Dynamical systems
    • Algebraic dynamics

    Chris Tisdell (Applied)

    • Differential equations
    • Difference equations