Big Math Down Under: Three Societies Meet in Auckland

More than 900 people flocked to Auckland, NZ, for December’s Joint Meeting of the New Zealand Mathematical Society (NZMS), Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS), and American Mathematical Society (AMS). It was a landmark assemblage.

“Yes, we’re calling it New Zealand’s biggest maths gathering,” said Paul Panckhurst, spokesperson for host University of Auckland, where the website proclaimed on December 9: “There are higher-than-normal odds of bumping into a mathematician in Auckland this week.”

Of the 885 participants plus 19 guests registered for the Joint Meeting, 149 people listed the AMS as their primary affiliation.

“This was my first visit to this part of the world and I am sure it won’t be my last,” said outgoing AMS president Bryna Kra (Northwestern University). “The distance means that there are many colleagues I had not met in person, and this led to terrific math conversations and new friendships.”

The Joint Meeting offered nine invited plenary presentations, 41 special sessions, two sessions of contributed presentations, a poster session with more than 50 presenters, and a public lecture by Persi Diaconis (Stanford University).

“The plenary talks were of high quality and I enjoyed all of them,” said Steven Weintraub (Lehigh University). The Joint Meeting was Weintraub’s final responsibility as an AMS associate secretary, a position he held for a record-tying 16 years. “I took the opportunity to do some sightseeing, and New Zealand’s reputation for physical beauty is well deserved,” he said.

Figure 2.

Outgoing presidents Melissa Tacy (NZMS), Jessica Purcell (AustMS), and Bryna Kra (AMS) at December’s Joint Meeting in Auckland.

Attendees felt the warm welcome of the host society throughout the meeting, which opened with a traditional mihi whakatau ceremony.

“The hospitality and friendliness here were unmatched, with breaks in the morning and afternoon overflowing with local foods,” Kra said. “The conference dinner had an amazing 750 people for a three-course, sit-down dinner, including a local New Zealand group singing, dancing, and performing a haka,” she said.

Kra attended the public lecture and plenary presentations. “Geordie Williamson gave a terrific talk on using neural networks in his research, we heard a great talk on using dynamical systems to model efforts to preserve the Maori culture and language, and Persi Diaconis gave a terrific public lecture to a packed audience,” she said.

In addition, Kra took part in the special session on ergodic theory and dynamical systems organized by AMS secretary Boris Hasselblatt (Tufts University), Andy Hammerlindl (Monash University), and Keith Burns (Northwestern). Presenters hailed from India, Pakistan, Israel, and various parts of Australia, New Zealand, and the US. The final day of the special session featured incoming NZMS president Bernd Krauskopf (University of Auckland) and Kra, outgoing AMS president.

“The turnout of participants was consistently strong, and there was much engagement with the talks,” Hasselblatt said. “Theoretical, computational, and applied dynamics interacted well, as did subject areas across a broad spectrum of ergodic theory and dynamical systems.”

Figure 3.

Attendees at the University of Auckland.

AMS publisher Loretta Bartolini took part in an informative panel, “Training of PhD students for 2025 and beyond,” which was moderated by Notices of the AMS editor Mark Wilson.

“The main highlight of the meeting for me was just the sheer number of people who showed up,” Bartolini said. “I don’t think anyone had originally expected so many internationals to make the trip. There were plenty of people from the US, but also quite a large number from Europe,” she said.

“I really enjoyed just seeing everything come together,” said Melissa Tacy, conference director of the Joint Meeting and NZMS president (University of Auckland). “This has been a long-scale project. The actual organization of the conference has been a big part of my professional life over the last two years so seeing everyone arrive and enjoy themselves was incredibly rewarding.”

Tacy added, “There was strong uptake from the public for the Tuesday evening talk and the local press were quite entranced by the idea of a mathematician who was also a magician. The room was packed-out for the [public] lecture itself, which created a particularly energetic atmosphere.”

Wrote presenter Diaconis via email: “I was surprised and happy at how my ’public talk’ went.

“First of all, it’s an impossible situation. A huge mixed audience, maybe 600+ people. Mostly mathematicians AND THEIR FAMILIES. People from the community (who brought their kids).

“The talk was called ‘The mathematics of solitaire’ and I talked about how we mathematicians can’t answer the question ‘what are the odds of winning the most common game (Klondike)?’. How to play well? How do the rules affect the answers? We don’t know.

“One thing that seemed to interest people: the best modern AI game-playing programs can’t answer the questions either.

“I managed to get some math in (probability, combinatorics, and random matrix theory),” he said. “I think, a good time was had by all.”