Science Week Public Lecture: Ryan -- The impact of coal dust in the Hunter Valley

To celebrate National Science Week, the ARC Centre of Excellence in
Mathematics and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS) is holding the following free
public lecture at the University of Technology Sydney.

Date: Wednesday, 19 August 2015


Time:

6:00pm - 6.30pm: Refreshments

6:30pm - 7.30pm: Lecture


Venue:

Green Lecture Hall, Level 2, Building 7, University of Technology Sydney.


Professor Louise Ryan

University of Technology Sydney


The impact of coal dust in the Hunter Valley

Newcastle is home to the world’s largest coal export port. Loaded coal
trains travel to the Port from mines located all throughout the Hunter.
Because the train tracks cut through residential neighborhoods, local
citizens are concerned that resulting coal dust emissions are reducing air
quality and potentially causing adverse health effects. In an attempt to
address citizen concerns, the NEW Environmental Protection Authority
commissioned a study designed to the impact of passing trains on the levels
of particulate matter measured in the air.


For National Science Week mathematician Prof Louise Ryan will give a non-
technical discussion of the analysis and describe the challenges she faced
in the analysis and strategies used to tackle these problems. The talk will
illustrate the challenge of tackling real world problems such as this,
especially when there are financial, political and societal implications in
play. The usefulness of modern visualization techniques in making sense of
large, messy datasets like this one will also be shown.


Biography of Professor Louise Ryan

After completing her undergraduate degree in statistics and mathematics at
Macquarie University, Louise Ryan left Australia in 1979 to pursue her PhD
in statistics at Harvard University in the United States. In 1983, Louise
then took up a postdoctoral fellowship in Biostatistics, jointly between
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health. She
was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1985, eventually becoming the Henry
Pickering Walcott Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at
Harvard. Louise returned to Australia in early 2009 to take up the role
as Chief of CSIRO’s Division of Mathematics, Informatics and
Statistics. In 2012, she joined UTS as a distinguished professor of
statistics in the School of Mathematical Sciences. Louise is well known
for her methodological contributions to statistical methods for cancer and
environmental health research. She loves the challenge and satisfaction
of multi-disciplinary collaboration. She has received numerous
prestigious awards, most recently her 2012 election to the Australian
Academy of Science.