We are delighted to announce that Peter Kiss, a PhD student in the Theory and Foundations Research Division, has won the Best Student Paper Award at the Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS) 2022 conference for his single-author paper on "Deterministic Dynamic Matching in Worst-Case Update Time". Computing a maximum matching in a graph is one of the most fundamental problems in design and analysis of algorithms. The paper makes important progress on this problem in a setting where the input graph is changing over time via a sequence updates, and one wishes to maintain a large matching efficiently in such a dynamic graph. Along the way, the paper develops a general purpose technique for converting any dynamic algorithm with amortised update time into one with worst-case update time, provided the initial algorithm is able to handle a more general form of batch updates.

Congratulations to Harita Dellaporta for having her AISTATS 2022 paper on Robust Bayesian Inference for Simulator-based Models being invited (44/1685 submitted papers) for an oral presentation!

Harita's paper titled "Robust Bayesian Inference for Simulator-based Models via the MMD Posterior Bootstrap" has been invited for an oral presentation (44 out of the 492 accepted papers) at this year's AISTATS 2022 conference https://aistats.org/aistats2022/

Congratulations to Professor Sandra Chapman, who leads the Centre for Fusion Space and Astrophysics on receiving the 2022 Chapman Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society. Professor Chapman received this award for 'paradigm shifting' research into the physics of the solar wind and magnetosphere, our near-earth plasma environment.

Find out more about Sandra's research and the award.

Dave Griffin explains how his time at Warwick opened his eyes to where a Chemistry degree could take him. Read more.

A new Lancet study shows that over a million people died in 2019 from infections caused by bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Dr Freya Harrison and Dr Antonia Sagona comment on the importance of this new evidence and the need to tackle the issue of antibiotic resistance urgently.

Expert Comment (20 January 2022)

WMG was pleased to welcome Farming Minister Victoria Prentis yesterday (Thursday 20th January).

The Minister was welcomed by WMG Executive Chair, Margot James, and given a tour of the Innovate UK-funded Natural Light Growing Centre and DEFRA-funded vegetable gene bank research centre, run by the School of Life Sciences, at the University of Warwick’s Wellesbourne campus.

The delegation then headed to WMG, on the University of Warwick campus, where they were given a presentation from Professor Robert Harrison on horticultural robotics and how they can support on a range of agricultural tasks. They then met with Professor Kerry Kirwan, who explained more about water treatment using recycled carbon fibre sheets.

Finally Dr Mark Swift, Head of SME Programmes, explained more about the SME support programme where WMG has helped the food and drink sector apply digital manufacturing techniques.

Margot James, executive Chair at WMG, University of Warwick said: "It was a pleasure to have Minister Victoria Prentis to visit us today, we were delighted to share the cutting edge research we are doing in collaboration with the agriculture and horticulture industries.

“These are vital sectors to the UK economy but there is vast potential to improve using automation, AI and digital manufacturing, as well as new growing practices being researched by our Life Sciences department."

Farming Minister Victoria Prentis, added: “It was great to visit the University of Warwick, which is making significant strides to ensure agri-robotics can be a reality for farmers and growers in the UK.

“We know how important it is for the industry to maximise productivity and yields. We are putting in place a series of initiatives – from the Farming Investment Fund, to the Farming Innovation Programme – to support the development and uptake of technology which can boost food production, productivity and the environment.”

The Warwick Mathematics Institute has been named as one of the world’s top mathematics departments by QS World University Rankings.

Overall, the University of Warwick has been named as one of the world’s top 100 universities for the study of 16 subjects, according to the 2021 edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject. The rankings, compiled by global higher education analysts QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) examined 14,435 individual university programs, taken by students at 1,452 universities across the world.

The University of Warwick’s best performances were in Mathematics, and in Statistics, which were both ranked 21st in the world.

Following the summer '21 launch of our new Annual Refresher course on Data Protection & Information Security, we have now completed production of a single new Induction course. It will be ready for launch and use by all new employees from 31 January 2022 as part of their mandatory new starter training.

New Induction Training for Data Protection & Information Security launches 31 January 2022 (warwick.ac.uk)