ACEMS in the Media

As ACEMS hits its stride, the interest in the Centre's work from the public and media has grown exponentially. The social media presence of the centre has skyrocketed and more and more of our researchers are providing expert commentary and analysis to Australia's leading news outlets.

But that is not all, in 2018 ACEMS launched its first podcast series 'The Random Sample' which takes a look at stories from all over ACEMS and the mathematical sciences, including interviews from pioneering women, mathematicians and statisticians working in industry, information theory, how we can use DNA to confirm connection to country of Australia's Aboriginal people, to speaking with leading experts using maths to solve the problem of space junk.

But the stand out project for ACEMS in 2018 was the Virtual Reef Diver project. This project led by ACEMS AI Erin Peterson and ACEMS Deputy Director Kerrie Mengersen was chosen by ABC Science as the 2018 Citizen Science Project for National Science Week. You can read more about the work Erin, Kerrie and team are doing at here. As you can imagine, the scope and size of the project led to a lot of media exposure for ACEMS and the research team working at QUT and UQ.

The project was featured extensively across the ABC network, along with stories in Australian Geographic and Cosmos Magazine. Erin along with ACEMS AI Julie Vercelloni appeared on ABC Radio National in August to talk about what they were trying to achieve and encourage more and more Australians to get involved and help save the reef.

As Australia's public broadcaster and leading public science and social affairs channel, the ABC had lots of content to develop from ACEMS' work. In October the 7:30 program featured a story on mathematical pioneer Alison Harcourt (you can read more about Alison here). Alongside Alison was ACEMS CI Kate Smith-Miles talking about the influence Alison has had on mathematics in Australia and how women in Australia have contributed to the discipline over the years.

Kate was featured again on the 7:30 program in November to discuss how Australia is retaining its mathematical strength through new research centres across the country.

But that is not all, in total ACEMS members appeared 18 times on radio and in over 120 articles in print media to show how maths and stats can be found in the everyday. Including interviews on your chances of winning the lottery (Peter Taylor); how we can predict heat waves and cold snaps (Adrian Barnett); the links between maths, stats and sports (Steven Woodcock); winning at McDonalds Monopoly (Sarah Belet); mapping disease outbreaks such as the flu (Josh Ross); and the social effects of gambling on communities (Kerrie Mengersen). For a full list of ACEMS media appearances go to.

ACEMS Comms all-stars Sevvandi Kandanaarchchi, Sarah Belet and Rob Hyndman talk about their experiences with social media at the ACEMS annual retreat