SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009

Early-career researchers

Thursday, 7 May 2009

HANNAN MEDAL

Professor (Edward) Norman Dancer FAA
University of Sydney

Norman Dancer was born in Bundaberg, Queensland, did his high school education at Churchie in Brisbane, his undergraduate education at the Australian National University (ANU) and his PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK. He returned to the ANU as a postdoctoral fellow and then spent 20 years at the University of New England, finishing as professor. He then moved to the University of Sydney. He became a Fellow of the Academy in 1996. He has had numerous visiting professorships in the USA and Europe (especially in France and Italy) including a Humboldt Research Award and a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship in the UK. He has given many plenary lectures at international meetings and lecture series at many universities (including a Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences lecture series in the USA in 2007). He is on the editorial board of a number of international journals and was named on the ISI list of the world's most quoted mathematicians.

Sharp peak solutions of nonlinear equations

Norman Dancer will discuss solutions with sharp peaks or sharp interfaces for nonlinear elliptic equations with small diffusion. These occur in a great many applications, including the theory of combustion, the theory of catalysts and population models in mathematical biology. He will discuss how the stable solutions (the ones of most physical interest) can usually be completely classified and also show that we can frequently understand very well the solutions 'which are not too unstable' though there can be complications here.