What Used to be New @ IRMACS

Date

News

October 25th, 2010 Come join the IRMACS annual Hallowe'en party on Friday, October 29th from 1:30 - 3:00 pm. There will be games and the best costume wins a prize! Bring your favorite Hallowe'en treat to share.
September 30th, 2010 After spending more than a year at the IRMACS Centre as an IRMACS Visiting Professor, Dr. Kohshi Okumura returns back to the Hiroshima Institute of Technology where he is a Full Professor. In Dr. Okumura's words, "over the last year my collaboration with Dr. Ljiljana Trajkovic, an IRMACS Project Leader, has been exceptionally productive".
September 5th, 2010 The IRMACS Centre welcomes back its members for another busy, exciting, and productive semester! Our fall kicks-off with the first CRC seminar by Dr. Paul Tupper on September 16th, the first C2C seminar by Dr. William Hsieh on September 21st, and the first IMC colloquium by Dr. Diana Allen on September 24th. Welcome to Fall 2010!
August 16th, 2010 The IRMACS Centre based Complex System Modelling Group has authored a book titled "Modelling in Healthcare". The book publisher is the American Mathematical Society and August 18, 2010, has been set as the publication date. Orders at $69, are available through http://www.amazon.com/
July 30th, 2010 The IRMACS Centre is pleased to announce that Mr. Ali Khalili Araghi is the first recipient of the Peter Borwein Annual Graduate Scholarship in Mathematical and Computational Modelling of Complex Systems Award. The award was established in April 2010 by the IRMACS Centre at SFU to recognize the scientific contribution to the field of the Mathematical and Computational Modelling of the Centre’s founder Dr. Peter Borwein. Congratulations, Mr. Araghi!
July 20th, 2010 Brian Corrie, our very own IRMACS Centre Technical Director, successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in Computer Science at the University of Victoria on July 19, 2010. Congratulations, Dr. Corrie!
July 2nd, 2010 The IRMACS Centre recently established the Peter Borwein Annual Graudate Scholarship in Mathematical & Computational Modelling of Complex Systems. As the process of establishing the award took longer than anticipated, the application deadline has been extended until July 21st. Scholarship terms of reference are available at http://www.sfu.ca/dean-gradstudies/scholarships_and_awards.
June 16th, 2010 The IRMACS Centre is pleased to announce that they will be showing live all games starting at 11:30 PST of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We ask that you bring donations for the SFU Food Bank as your admission contribution. The box will be in the front of the Studio before each game. For more information about the SFU Food Bank see http://students.sfu.ca/foodbank/index.html. Please donate generously.
June 4th, 2010 Ms. Hiromi Matsui, an IRMACS member, will be part of the Canadian delegation attending the Ninth Commonwealth Women's Affairs Ministers' Meeting (9WAMM) in Barbados, June 7-9. The theme for 9WAMM is: ``Gender Issues in Economic Crisis, Recovery and Beyond: Women as Agents of Transformation." For more details see http://www.thecommonwealth.org/subhomepage/221912/
May 25th, 2010 The theme for the Fall 2010 session of the Coast to Coast seminar is "Oceanography" and the IRMACS Centre will continue to be one of the organizers of this successful pan-Canadian scientific collaboration. The IRMACS Centre recently completed the creation of the new Coast to Coast seminar website: http://c2c.irmacs.sfu.ca/
May 15th, 2010 We are sad to announce that Ms. Reena Rama has accepted a new position and stopped working at the Centre on Friday, May 14. We are, however, very pleased to announce that Ms. Sophie Borwein and Ms. Alyssa Jordan have joined the IRMACS team. These two capable young women will be sharing the reception position and working on other projects over the next few months.
May 9th, 2010 Dr. Faisal Beg, an IRMACS Project Leader, is one of 10 hikers who will in September make the nearly 6,000 metre trek up Mount Kilimanjaro on behalf of the Alzheimer Society of B.C. Dr. Beg hopes to raise $10,000 for the society. To contribute to his trek and learn more see www.alzheimerbc.org.
May 1st, 2010 The IRMACS Centre welcomes back Dr. Michael Coons, one of our former members! On May 9, 2010, Dr. Coons, presently of the University of Waterloo, will be one of the speakers at the Pacific Northwest Number Theory Conference 2010 which is hosted by the IRMACS Centre. For more information about the conference see http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/~nbruin/pnwntc2010/.
April 19th, 2010 The IRMACS Centre welcomes its newest project "The Clockwork Girl" brought to the Centre by the team at Luximation (Legacy and Arcana Studios combined). In the words of Mr. Sean O'Reilly, the project leader, "Given the interdisciplinary nature of the filmmaking process, the two companies can think of no better facility to house their project than the IRMACS Centre."
April 9th, 2010 On Friday, April 9th, 2010, the IRMACS Centre celebrated its 5th anniversary of operation. Among other activities the program consisted of a presentation by Dr. Warren Hare, the premiere of the documentary "The IRMACS Centre: The First Five Years" and a poster session showcasing current research at the Centre. See the Event Program for more details.
March 22nd, 2010 Over the next couple of weeks the IRMACS Centre will be replacing the G5 computers in its labs with 21" iMacs. The Centre is partnering with IT Services in the roll out of the new computers and, in an effort to deploy and support the Macs more effectively, the newly developed Managed Mac Program will be used. Any questions about this computer migration should be sent to help@irmacs.sfu.ca.
March 10th, 2010 Dr. Matt DeVos, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and an IRMACS member since his arrival to SFU, has been awarded a $50,000 Sloan Research Fellowship to further his fundamental research in graph theory. Congratulations Matt! The IRMACS Centre is proud to be the host of the Open Problem Garden http://garden.irmacs.sfu.ca/, an online collection of unsolved problems created by Matt DeVos and Robert Samal.
March 1st, 2010 The IRMACS Centre welcomes back its members after the SFU Olympic Break! During this week, the Centre will host a Coast-To-Coast Seminar presentation by Dr. Scott Oser, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UBC, on Tuesday, March 2, and an IRMACS Modelling Colloquium presentation by Dr. Nilima Nigam, Department of Mathematics, SFU, on Friday, March 5.
Feb 15th, 2010 The IRMACS Centre will be open and fully functional during SFU's Olympic Break, February 15-26. Check out the kiosk in the IRMACS Atrium for the Olympic scores and stop by the IRMACS Presentation Studio for a live broadcast of Olympic events.
Feb 2nd, 2010 On Friday, April 9th, 2010, the IRMACS Centre will celebrate its 5th anniversary of operation. One segment of our celebration will be a poster session with the aim to present the current projects housed by the IRMACS Centre in their full variety. The poster file should be sent to Mr. Andy Gavel, a member of the Tech Support Team at the IRMACS Centre, at andy@irmacs.sfu.ca by Friday, March 19, 2010.
January 27th, 2010 Mr. Andy Gavel, a member of the AV Tech Support Team at the IRMACS Centre and an alumni of the "Program in Film at the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts", is filming the movie with the working title "The IRMACS Centre: The First Five Years". The movie will be a mosaic of stories, memories, facts and anecdotes about the IRMACS Centre’s contribution to the scientific community. The premiere is scheduled for April 9, 2010, as part of the 5th Annual IRMACS Day.
January 21st, 2010 Henry Daniel, an Associate Professor at the SFU School of Contemporary Arts and an IRMACS Project Leader, is a co-creator of IMPRINT, an interdisciplinary work commissioned for the UBC Museum Of Anthropology’s (MOA) Celebration of Creativity presented by Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad. The world premiere will take place on Saturday, January 23, 2010, 7:00 pm (free of charge) as part of the launch of the new MOA. Congratulations Henry, and good luck!
January 18th, 2010 Faced with the end of our CFI funded period and due to the current economic climate, as one of the measures in order to remain operational, the IRMACS Centre has adjusted its membership fee structure. The Centre is taking additional steps towards sustainability and is working on generating income from other sources. The revised fee structure can be found at http://www.sfu.ca/irmacs-archive/irmacs/research/apply-membership
January 13th, 2010 Dr. Charmaine B. Dean, a member of the IRMACS Management Committee, will be recognized for her contributions to science and technology at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow Forum on February 20, 2010, during the AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego. Founded in 1848, AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science. Congratulations, Charmaine!
December 20th, 2009 The IRMACS Centre was featured in the book titled "Media Space 20+ Years of Mediated Life" published by Springer Publishing Company in 2009. The book was edited by Steve Harrison from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. The chapter about the IRMACS Centre was written by Brian Corrie, the IRMACS Technical Director.
December 11th, 2009 The IRMACS Centre will continue to organize and host its successful and popular "SFU Canada Research Chair Seminar Series". Spring 2010 speakers include David Vocadlo, Andrew Feenberg, Glen F. Tibbits, John J. Clague, and Charlotte Waddell. For dates of all presentations visit http://www.sfu.ca/irmacs-archive/irmacs/events/crc-seminar-series
December 4th, 2009 Dr. Fiona Brinkman, one of our first IRMACS project leaders, has been named on the 2009 Top 100 List of Canada's Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network, a Toronto-based professional development agency. Congratulations, Fiona!
November 28th, 2009 The annual IRMACS Community Christmas Party will be held on Thursday, December 3rd from 3:00 - 5:00. Everyone is asked to bring a donation for the SFU Food Bank and to wear their favorite winter scarf. There will be a table at the party for potluck contributions.
November 20th, 2009 A sincere welcome to Ms. Reena Rama, Mr. Brian Landau, and Mr. Jacob Groundwater who joined the IRMACS team in the past few weeks. Reena is our new Receptionist/Research Assistant, Brian has been partially seconded from IT Services to help out with our Mac desktop support, and Jacob, a long time IRMACS member, will provide general systems administration.
November 3rd, 2009 During its' November 2nd, 2009 session, the SFU Senate approved and recommended to the Board of Governors our proposal for a Graduate Certificate in Modelling of Complex Social Systems. Congratulations go out to all who made this significant development of the MoCSSy Program possible and particularly to Dr. Vahid Dabbaghian and Dr. Warren Hare, the present and former directors of the Program.
October 20th, 2009 The first speaker in the "Artificial Intelligence" session of the Canadian Coast-To-Coast Seminar Series was Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer from the University of Alberta. His presentation was attended by 137 people at a record breaking 22 Canadian universities! The Coast-To-Coast Seminar is organized and delivered by AARMS, ACEnet, the IRMACS Centre, SciNet, SHARCNET, and WestGrid. See the Coast-2-Coast schedule for upcoming presentations.
September 22nd, 2009 The IRMACS Centre and the Fields Institute, University Of Toronto, are jointly hosting the "Workshop on Discovery and Experimentation in Number Theory" between September 22 and September 26. At each site there will be approx. 50 participants that will share research presentations and discussion through the use of remote collaboration technology. For more details please see the Workshop Schedule
September 14th, 2009 The Fall IRMACS seminar season promises a string of first class speakers. This week the Centre is pleased to host presentations by Dr. Kieran Egan in the SFU Canada Research Chairs Seminar Series and by Dr. Allan Best in the IRMACS Modelling Colloquium.
September 10th, 2009 The Annual IRMACS Project Leader Meeting is scheduled for September 10. The goals of the meeting are to summarize the Centre's activities during the last year, to showcase the upcoming fall activities and to hold an important discussion about the future directions of the IRMACS Centre.
August 21st, 2009 Several IRMACS members defended their masters and doctoral theses during the summer semester. Our congratulations go out to Hayri Ardal, Andrea Blazenko, Pouya Bastani, Yigeng Huang, Qifeng Jiang, Eric Sayre, Christine Stoll, Paul Ottaway, and Vivien Wong.
August 17th, 2009 On July 11-12, 2009, two members of the IRMACS management team, Ms. Pam Borghardt and Dr. Veselin Jungic, visited the California Institute for Telecommunication and Information Technology (Calit2) at the University of California San Diego. They had a series of meetings with the Calit2 administrative and scientific leaders with goals to learn how Calit2, one of the leading interdisciplinary institutions in the world, operates and to explore possibilities of future collaboration between the IRMACS Centre and Calit2.
August 6, 2009 July's issue of the SFU News runs stories about two IRMACS members, Dr. Andrew Park and Dr. Herbert Tsang. With their exceptional knowledge, talent and attitude both Andrew and Herbert have greatly contributed to success of the IRMACS hosted MoCSSy Program.

For full stories see
http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/news/story_07220910.shtml
and
http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/news/story_07220903.shtml
July 30, 2009 In his recent "09 Report To Community", the SFU President Dr. Michael Stevenson lists IRMACS' project leaders Lynne Bell, Felix Breden, Robert Hogg, and George Nicholas among "world leading (...) researchers who are conducting research that will change the way the world thinks".

For full report see http://www.sfu.ca/report2008/.
July 24th, 2009 IRMACS' members Navid Alaei, Natasha Richardson, Steven Rossi, Ying Wang, and Asif Zaman successfully presented results of their research at the 16th Canadian Undergraduate Mathematical Conference (CUMC) held at Carleton University in July 2009. Navid, Steven, and Asif are NSERC USRA summer students, supervised by IRMACS' project leaders Dr. Peter Borwein, Dr. Stephen Choi, and Dr. Alexander Rutherford.

Quiz: In which year did the IRMACS Center host CUMC?
July 16th, 2009 The IRMACS Managing Director, Ms. Pam (PJ) Borghardt, a recent recipient of the Golden Jubilee Medal for her life-long contributions to the Girl Guides of Canada, is co-leading a group of local Girl Guide Rangers on a trip to New Zealand. The trip will take place between July 17 and July 31 and the group will participate in an exciting program filled with opportunities to meet other Girl Guides & Girl Scouts from around the world. The group will tour the North Island participating in many adventurous activities as well as visiting cultural sites, nature reserves, and local Maori communities.
July 10, 2009 A group of IRMACS researchers lead by the IRMACS executive co-directors Dr. Peter Borwein and Dr. Uwe Glasser have been invited by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to submit a full application for the Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) Program. The working title of the proposal is "The Modelling and Visualization of Complex Systems". The CREATE Program supports the training of teams of highly qualified students and postdoctoral fellows from Canada and abroad through the development of innovative training programs.
July 7th, 2009 Between July 6 and July 11, the IRMACS Centre hosts several presentations for participants of the regional CMS Math Camp. One of the presenters is our Research Director, Dr. Veselin Jungic. For the schedule of the Math Camp presentations see <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/irmacs-archive/irmacs/events/week">http://www.sfu.ca/irmacs-archive/irmacs/events/week</a>
June 26th, 2009 Our CFI Leading Edge Fund proposal for the second phase of the development of the IRMACS Centre was not successful in the latest CFI round. We still believe that we had an excellent proposal with an excellent group of researchers and look forward to the reviews next month to understand why we weren't funded. Many thanks to all members of the IRMACS community for their help and support during this long process.
June 2009 We are pleased to announce that Dr. Uwe Glasser (former Director of Computing Science) is officially taking on the role of Executive Co-Director for the IRMACS Centre effective immediately. Uwe has been centrally involved in many aspects of the Centre as a project leader and member of the Management Committee for a number of years and we are extremely pleased that he has agreed to join us in this new challenge. Welcome Uwe!

May 21st, 2009

We are sad to announce the imminent departure of our MoCSSy Program Director, Dr. Warren Hare. Warren has accepted a position with UBC Okanagan and will be leaving in June. We are, however, very pleased to announce that Dr. Vahid Dabbaghian has agreed to take over as the new MoCSSy Program Director. We wish them both all the best with their new positions.
May 19th, 2009 The IRMACS Centre would like to congratulate Professor Bob Russell from the Department of Mathematics for being named as a SIAM Fellow for his contributions to the numerical solution of ordinary and partial differential equations. For a full list of SIAM Fellows Class of 2009 visit fellows.siam.org. Quiz: Name at least three SIAM Fellows from the Class of 2009 who gave talks in the IRMACS Centre in 2008.
May 2nd, 2009 David Lynn, an IRMACS project member, is also a member the Bovine HapMap Consortium. The consortium's findings on the mapped genetic diversity of 19 breeds of cattle worldwide were published in the latest "Science". View the podcast.
April 28th, 2009 Thanks to all who joined or pledged to our "IRMACS for an MS Cure" team! 20 of us enjoyed a sunny walk along the Rocky Point shores and the team proudly raised almost $1000!
April 21st, 2009 Join the "IRMACS for an MS Cure" team for the Scotia MS Walk on Sunday, April 26, at Rocky Point Park, 2800 Murray Street, Port Moody! For online registration/pledge please visit www.mssociety.ca/bc/walk_lower%20mainland.htm.
April 15th, 2009 Todd Zimmerman is coming back to the IRMACS Centre! Sadly ... only for the C2C Retreat that will be held at the Centre on April 24th and 25th.
April 3rd, 2009 Three IRMACS members defended their Ph.D. theses in the first week of April. Our congratulations go out to Dr. Michael Coons, Dr. Alan Meichsner, and Dr. Philip Poon.
March 25th, 2009 Our 4th Annual IRMACS Day will be on Thursday, April 2, 1:30-3:30, presenting our own Brian Corrie and Andy Gavel with their first public SFU Google Earth 3D demo and Sharon Jackson, a Certified Laughter Leader, presenting the "Benefits of Laughter". Party to follow!
March 13th, 2009 Brian Corrie and Andy Gavel, our own 3D visualization-magicians, are preparing the first public SFU Google Earth 3D demo in the IRMACS Presentation Studio. More details soon!
March 1st, 2009 On Friday, March 13, the IRMACS Centre community will celebrate PI+ei * PI Day. You are invited to attend Dr. Tom Archibald's talk titled "Euler pie-eyed, or, how the sine became a function" at 11:30 and to taste various kinds of PI at 12:20.
February 6th, 2009 A sincere welcome to Ms. Maryam Elkaswani who has joined the IRMACS team as our new receptionist. Maryam has many years of reception experience and is a already "learning the ropes" of our busy Centre. Come by and say hi or send her an email at reception@irmacs.sfu.ca.
January 28th, 2009 Mr. Andy Gavel, B. Fine Arts, has joined the IRMACS staff. Andy will provide part-time audio visual support to our research community as well as continue working on a 3D film project for IRMACS. Welcome to the IRMACS team Andy!
January 19th, 2009 Ms. Helen Zhai, B. Sc., has joined the IRMACS team on a part-time basis. Her duties include administrative support for the IRMACS Centre as well as the MoCSSy program and the CSMG group. Welcome Helen!
January 12th, 2009 On January 16, IRMACS hosts Dr. Mark Lewis from U of Alberta as a CSC/PIMS Distinguished Speaker. Dr. Lewis is the Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Biology. He conducts research in mathematical biology, with a focus in spatial ecology.
December 4th, 2008 The theme for the Spring 2009 session of the Coast-to-Coast Seminar Series is "Modelling differential equations". This will be the eighth series session of this unique pan-Canadian seminar that is organized and distributed by the IRMACS Centre, D-Drive, WestGrid, ACENet, and SHARCNET. For a list of all previous speakers check out the Coast-To-Coast page.
November 27th, 2008 On Thursday, December 4, 2008, Dr. Bozena Kaminska, Canada Research Chair in Wireless Sensor Networks, School of Engineering Science, will be the speaker at the SFU Canada Research Chair Seminar Series. The title of Dr. Kaminska's talk is "Heterogeneous Microsystems and Enabling Technologies". For previous session recordings of the series please visit: www.sfu.ca/irmacs-archive/irmacs/about/imagesvideos/canada-research-chair-seminar-presentations
November 18th, 2008 The MoCSSy Program proudly presents a Computational Criminology Symposium on November 25th, 2008. The MoCSSy Program is a research and training program generously supported through the SFU Community Endowment Trust Fund. The program aims to bring together research from Criminology, Computing Science, Geography, Health Science, Mathematics, and Statistics to develop novel modeling methodologies and applications exploring complex social systems. In this symposium, world-renowned researchers who have been applying interdisciplinary research approaches to advance the field of Criminology will present their research and results.
November 10th, 2008 Welcome to the IRMACS Centre's newly designed website. We're thrilled to launch this exciting, dynamic site and look forward to our users' comments and feedback. Check back often for new pages, research project spotlights and information about the many upcoming IRMACS hosted research events and workshops.