Catherine Greenhill is an Australian mathematician known for her research on

random graph In mathematics, random graph is the general term to refer to probability distributions over graphs. Random graphs may be described simply by a probability distribution, or by a random process which generates them. The theory of random graphs ...

combinatorial enumeration Enumerative combinatorics is an area of combinatorics that deals with the number of ways that certain patterns can be formed. Two examples of this type of problem are counting combinations and counting permutations. More generally, given an infin ...

and

Markov chain A Markov chain or Markov process is a stochastic model describing a sequence of possible events in which the probability of each event depends only on the state attained in the previous event. Informally, this may be thought of as, "What happen ...

s. She is a professor of mathematics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...

, and an editor-in-chief of the ''

Electronic Journal of Combinatorics The ''Electronic Journal of Combinatorics'' is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering research in combinatorial mathematics. The journal was established in 1994 by Herbert Wilf (University of Pennsylvania) and Neil Calkin (Georg ...

''.

Education and career

Greenhill did her undergraduate studies at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = ...

, and remained there for a master's degree, working with

Anne Penfold Street Anne Penfold Street (1932–2016) was one of Australia's leading mathematicians, specialising in combinatorics. She was the third woman to become a mathematics professor in Australia, following Hanna Neumann and Cheryl Praeger. She was the aut ...

there. She earned her Ph.D. in 1996 at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

, under the supervision of Peter M. Neumann. Her dissertation was ''From Multisets to Matrix Groups: Some Algorithms Related to the Exterior Square''. After postdoctoral research with Martin Dyer at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

and Nick Wormald at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb n ...

, Greenhill joined the University of New South Wales in 2003. She was promoted to associate professor in 2014, becoming the first female mathematician to earn such a promotion at UNSW.

Recognition

Greenhill was the 2010 winner of the Hall Medal of the

Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) is an international scientific organization formed in 1990 to increase the visibility and influence of the combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors conferences, ...

. She was president of the Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia for 2011–2013. In 2015 the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal So ...

awarded her their Christopher Heyde Medal for distinguished research in the mathematical sciences. She was elected a Fellow of the

in 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Greenhill, Catherine Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Australian women mathematicians Women mathematicians Graph theorists University of Queensland alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford Academic staff of the University of New South Wales Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science