School research

The School of Information and Physical Sciences is active in many areas of research.

Our research groups in mathematics, physics, statistics, computing and information technology, and cyber security attract funding from industry, government organisations and the highly competitive Australian Research Council grant schemes.

Our School researchers are involved with collaborations with other University of Newcastle researchers as part of several research groups. For more information, please click on the “Centres and groups” tile below.

The main themes of our mathematical research are modelling of physical systems at both the macro- and nano-scale, computational mathematics, signal processing, partial differential equations, number theory and topological algebra. We work with researchers in other disciplines within the university, and our strong national and international profiles in many of these areas involve external collaborations.

In physics, we conduct research on materials, including nano-materials and organic electronics, solar and space physics, laser physics and photonics, and medical physics. We collaborate with internal and external partners across the fields of science and engineering - and beyond - to tackle global challenges in areas such as advanced manufacturing, public health, and renewable energy.

Research in computing and IT, data science and statistics ranges from fundamental research in human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, software engineering and image processing, to more applied research in educational technology, decision making, virtual reality, simulation and robotics. There is a strong industry participation in our research activities, which address key challenges in industries such as health, education, food, logistics, mining, defence, transport and business.

SIPS Research

Our research strengths

Marc Adam
Computing and IT
   Human-centred computing, human-computer interaction, mobile health systems, user experience design, cybersecurity behavior, decision support systems
Rukshan Athauda
Computing and IT
   Database systems, educational technology, cloud computing, information security, applications of IT
Regina Berretta
Computing and IT
   Operations research, evolutionary algorithms, combinatorial optimisation, heuristics/metaheuristics, lot-sizing and scheduling problems
Florian Breuer
Mathematics
   Number theory, elliptic curves, Drinfeld modules, function field arithmetic
Stephan Chalup
Data Science and Statistics
   Multi-agent systems, artificial intelligence, deep learning, evolutionary algorithms, manifold learning, machine learning, reinforcement learning, topological data analysis
Raymond Chiong
Data Science and Statistics
   Agent-based modelling, artificial intelligence, game theory, evolutionary algorithms, supply chain optimisation, technology-enhanced learning
Xuhui Fan
Data Science and Statistics
   Bayesian methods, optimisation and inference, statistical machine learning
Kirill Glavatskiy
Data Science and Statistics
   Agent-based modelling, information measures, ensemble and fluctuation analysis
Jeff Hogan
Mathematics
   Harmonic analysis, Clifford analysis, Fourier analysis
Vicki Keast
Physics
   Solid state physics, electron microscopy, nanomaterials, equity and diversity
Bishnu Lamichhane
Mathematics
   Numerical analysis, computational methods for partial differential equations, finite element methods, mathematical modelling, modelling with data
Yuqing Lin
Computing and IT
   Discrete mathematics, combinatorial optimization, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, software engineering
Glen Livingston Jr
Data Science and Statistics
   Bayesian statistics, multivariate time series, statistical theory
Suhuai Luo
Data Science and Statistics
   Computational biology, computer vision, deep learning, machine learning, signal processing
James McCoy
Mathematics
   Curvature flow, partial differential equations, geometric analysis, differential geometry
Alexandre Mendes
Computing and IT
   Evolutionary algorithms, artificial intelligence, neural networks, computer vision, robotics, logistics
Mike Meylan
Mathematics
   Mathematical geophysics, hydrodynamics, spectral methods, numerical solution of partial differential equations, Fourier methods
Sky Miao
Computing and IT
   Machine learning, cybersecurity, adversarial machine learning, privacy-preserving machine learning
Pablo Moscato
Data Science and Statistics
   Machine learning, approximability, information-based medicine, computational biology, deep learning, evolutionary algorithms, multi-agent systems, optimisation, time series analysis, vehicle routing
Hakim Newton
Data Science and Statistics
   Artificial intelligence, search and optimisation, data science, machine learning, constraints, planning, scheduling, satisfiability, bioinformatics
Nasimul Noman
Computing and IT
   Evolutionary algorithms, machine learning, robust optimisation, adversarial machine learning
David Pontin
Physics
   Solar physics, plasma physics, fluid dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics, computational modelling
Ian Renner
Data Science and Statistics
   Ecological statistics, spatial statistics, statistical computing, species distribution modelling, penalised regression
Philipp Rouast
Computing and IT
   Machine learning, computer vision, affective computing, human-computer interaction, remote photoplethysmography
Geoffrey Skinner
Data Science and Statistics
   Astrophysics, machine learning
Elizabeth Stojanovski
Data Science and Statistics
   Applied statistics, Bayesian statistics, statistics for population health
Stephan Tornier
Mathematics
   Topological group theory, computational group theory
George Willis
Mathematics
   Topological algebra, locally compact groups, symmetry of discrete structures, combinatorial geometry, functional analysis, harmonic analysis
Yang Yang
Data Science and Statistics
   Time series modeling, functional data analysis, demography forecasting, panel data models
Lin Yue
Data Science and Statistics
   Sequential data learning and analysis in healthcare, data mining, machine learning