Dear friend of SMRI,

We are extremely pleased that the last six months allowed us to complete our first themed semester, hold several workshops in person, and host a number of visitors at our premises in the Quadrangle.

The themed semester on “Machine Learning for the Working Mathematician” started with introductory lectures by Joel Gibson, Georg Gottwald and Geordie Williamson, and then featured talks by a number of researchers using machine learning in their mathematical research. We were also fortunate that Alex Davies from DeepMind outlined the technical history of AlphaZero. Recordings of all talks, as well as Google Colab notebooks that help with first steps in this area, can be found on the MLWM website.

In association with the themed semester, Geordie Williamson held a public lecture co-organised with Sydney Ideas and moderated by Adam Spencer on 15 March. More than 170 participants attended in-person at the Charles Perkins Centre, while 205 joined via the live-stream.  After the event, the public engaged with interactive displays organised by SMRI and our student society SUMS — for many, this was the first in-person event in two years, and many lingered for more than an hour after the event discussing mathematical ideas and playing with machine learning. Geordie’s talk is now available to watch on YouTube and the Sydney Ideas podcast.

This year’s International Congress of Mathematicians took place as a fully online event. We organised a local hub at SMRI, which featured live talks by Regina Burachik and George Willis and a selection of recorded talks from the ICM. The streamings were accompanied by informative and stimulating in-person discussions. Alina Ostafe, James Nichols, Dale Roberts and Geordie Williamson gave impromptu presentations on the work of some of the Fields medallists. Dale Roberts also won our Fields nominations game by correctly guessing three of the four Fields medallists. Congratulations! You can read more about the hub below — based on the feedback we received, this would be a worthwhile event to repeat for the next ICM.

In addition to our video interviews with guests, we started a new series of short written pieces, highlighting research projects initiated or completed as a result of our visitors programs. You can find the first piece, on Bob Rink’s work on multiple timescales, below.

Reflecting on my first seven months as Executive Director of SMRI, I feel privileged to work with an energetic and effective team, and the trust of our donors that enables us to make our vision for the institute reality.

— Professor Stephan Tillmann

SMRI congratulates the four Fields Medal recipients: Hugo Duminil-Copin (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques), June Huh (Princeton University), James Maynard (University of Oxford), and Maryna Viazovska (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology).

Professor Duminil-Copin has been a member of the SMRI Advisory Board since 2018, while Professor Huh visited the University of Sydney in 2019 to present the Dr Simon Marais Memorial Lecture, at the invitation of the University of Sydney and SMRI.