Cohort 5
Simone Appella
Simone graduated in Physics at the University of Turin in 2016, after completing an Erasmus internship at the Karlsruhe institute of technology (KIT) where he performed a statistical analysis of cosmic rays to speed up the data retrieval process in a non-relational database. In 2018 he obtained a Master’s degree in Stochastics and Data Science in Turin, with his final thesis dealing with the impact of Recommender systems on a network of online consumers. He is looking forward to widening his knowledge about dynamical processes on biological and social complex systems. In his spare time, he practises Aikido, running and enjoys watching Japanese anime. He is keen on video-games and programmed two indie games for portable devices with some geeky friends.
Oluwatosin Babasola
Oluwatosin graduated from Pan African University Institute for Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation, Kenya with an MSc in Mathematics (Finance Option) in 2018 having previously obtained a Master’s degree in Mathematical Sciences and Mathematics at African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) South Africa and University of Ilorin, Nigeria respectively. His Master’s dissertation was on orthogonal collocation technique for numerical solutions of integral equations. He is also interested in option pricing and recently carried out a research on pricing of Barrier Options. Outside of Maths, Oluwatosin enjoys playing table tennis and football.
Thomas Bartos
Thomas graduated from the University of St Andrews in 2018 with an MMath in Mathematics. During his studies, he became interested in population genetics and the application of novel statistical methods to genetic data. In his Master’s project, he studied a class of classification algorithms and analysed the effectiveness of their application to gene-expression data. Currently he is also interested in statistical inference for models used in evolutionary biology. Outside of maths, he enjoys watching films, exercise and playing the piano.
Tom Davis
Tom graduated from the University of Oxford in 2015 with a BA in Economics and Management, and completed an MSc in Financial Engineering at the University of Birmingham in 2018. He spent the intervening years working for an insurance company as an actuarial trainee, which is where Tom really began to find his passion for applied maths generally, and probability theory in particular. Since then, he has also developed an interest in numerical analysis. As part of his MSc, Tom completed a project in which he implemented and benchmarked, using C++, a Monte Carlo-based method for calculating guaranteed confidence intervals for means of random variables. In his spare time, Tom enjoys reading and programming, and is also (slowly) learning how to cook.
Margaret Duff
Margaret graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA and MMath in Mathematics in 2018. During this time, she completed summer projects in the Cambridge Image Analysis group and with GSK in Stevenage. Both projects focused on image classification, applying a mixture of computer vision and machine learning techniques to classify images. Her Master's Essay was on "Time Reversal Imaging in Inhomogeneous Media" which has applications to everything from earthquakes to brain tumours! She is excited to explore interesting applications of image analysis and mathematical biology. Outside of Maths, Margaret is a Cub and a Guide leader and volunteers with the Hosanna House and Children's Pilgrimage Trust. She enjoys walking, swimming, reading and travelling.
Marco Murtinu
Marco graduated in Mathematical Statistics and Data Management at the University of Genoa in 2016. During his Bachelor degree he completed a six months Erasmus period at the TU Dortmund, where he wrote his final thesis concerning the use of M-estimators for the detection of change points in time series models. In 2018 he obtained an MSc in Stochastics and Data Science at the University of Turin. His final thesis concerned the quickest detection of disorder times for the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. He is interested in stochastic analysis and especially in its applications. In his spare time he writes fantasy novels (in Italian).
Laura Oporto Lisboa
Laura graduated from the National University of Asuncion (UNA) in 2016 with a degree in Chemical Engineering. Her dissertation focused on the numerical simulation of pollutant dispersion in shallow lakes. Following her undergraduate degree, she co-tutored two engineering dissertations and worked as a research assistant at the Centre for Research in Mathematics in Paraguay, where she took part in a research project in collaboration with colleagues in the Nephrology Department of the Clinics Hospital at UNA. Her other interests are reading, watching films, swimming and learning Korean and Finnish.
Cohort 5 - Continued
Eileen Russell
Eileen graduated from the University of Limerick with a BSc in Mathematics and Physics in 2018. Her final year project involved applying asymptotic techniques to non-linear ordinary differential equations in order to model a fluid dynamics problem. Eileen enjoys mathematical modelling and applied mathematics. During her degree, she completed a placement with Philips Healthcare in the Netherlands. Following her Bachelor’s degree, she completed a research internship at the University of Limerick, which involved Markov Chains. Outside of Maths, Eileen enjoys playing camogie and Gaelic football.
Zsófia Talyigas
Zsófia graduated from Budapest in 2018 with an MSc in mathematics, with special interest in probability and stochastics. As part of her Master's studies she spent five months in Stockholm with the Erasmus+ program. In her Master's thesis she worked out the proofs of two limit theorems about directed random polymer models. She also took part in two internships during her Master's years, exploring a Markov model for reliability problems of telecommunications services and also financial models. Apart from math she likes to travel and to do sport, especially table tennis or tennis.
Jordan Taylor
Jordan graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2015 with a BSc in Actuarial Sciences. He then worked as an analyst for NHS Property Services Ltd in London for 2 years where he mainly created, developed, and trained staff from various departments on financial models. He noticed the increasing uses of machine learning and artificial intelligence in a wide range of applications and went on to complete his MSc in Data Science at the University of Bath. His Master's dissertation was on the applications of machine learning for stock investment, whereby given some state representation of the market, one had to decide whether to buy or sell a stock. Jordan modelled this as a reinforcement learning problem with the use of neural networks as a function approximator. In his spare time, Jordan enjoys playing table tennis, badminton and the piano.
Jason Wood
Jason graduated from the University of York in 2018 with an MMath degree in mathematics and physics. His Master’s thesis explored how individual fluid particles were moved by the motion of a swimming microorganism. He is currently interested in exploring epidemiology and the more general field of mathematical biology. Jason enjoys board games and literature, as well as the niche sport of underwater hockey.
Josh Kynaston
Josh graduated from the University of Bath in 2018 with an MMath, where he focused primarily on Probability Theory. He completed two summer projects with the Bath Institute for Mathematical Innovation, firstly on the Keston-Stigum theorem for discrete time branching processes, and secondly on the optimization of tensegrity structures. His final year project was on the conformal invariance of critical site percolation but he is interested in learning more about a wide variety of topics. Besides maths, Josh enjoys reading, films, squash, and knitting bad hats.
SAMBa 2018 Aligned Students
Aligned students work on PhD projects generated by SAMBa, or work in close collaboration with the cohort. They are often co-funded by our partners.
Michele Firmo
Working with Schlumberger on improving uncertainties estimates in a Bayesian framework, on the measures obtained with the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance on porous media. (Supervisors: Silvia Gazzola, Tony Shardlow and Edmund Fordham.)
Michele obtained his MSc degree in Mathematics at the Catholic University of Brescia in 2017, with a final-project related to the description of the time evolution of the traffic flow at a highway entrance ramp, based on the non-local conservation laws theory. He worked for a year in a global consulting firm in the financial area before joining SAMBa, following his passion for mathematics applied to real world problems. Apart from mathematics, Michele is interested in eating (and sharing my home country food), running (with some breaks to eat berries), learning languages and travelling.
Yvonne Krumbeck
Working on randomness in biological populations, funded by The Royal Society (Supervisors: Tim Rogers and George Constable)
In 2015, Yvonne completed a BSc in Physics at the University of Münster. Fascinated by non-linear dynamics, she entered the Master's programme in Complex Adaptive Systems at the University of Gothenburg and graduated in 2018. She developed a special interest in life science and wants to apply her maths and programming skills in an interdisciplinary environment. Thus, she devotes herself to the field of mathematical biology and currently works on population dynamics involving more than two mating types and probabilistic fitness distributions. Besides research, she likes learning new languages and enjoys outdoor activities, such as hiking, bird watching and photography, or cosy film and boardgame evenings.
Eric Baruch Gutiérrez Castillo
Eric obtained his Master's degree in Applied Mathematics in 2016 from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. While there he did an internship in Deltares, a research institute dedicated to water and subsoil research, where he collaborated in the project "Tracking Plastic in the Ocean" for five months, which involved the modelling of global ocean currents for the prediction of plastic waste accumulation in the ocean surface. For the past two years he has worked as a researcher for the Mexican Institute of Oil, in Mexico City, where he has mostly focused in numerical analysis for different geophysical models. The most recent of these projects has been an effort to model low frequency acoustic waves in saturated elastic porous media, for oil reservoir simulation. He speaks four languages, has a passion for books and movies, and enjoys wall climbing, football and capoeira.
SAMBa 2018 Aligned Students - continued
Dan Burrows
Working with Schlumberger on drill system parameter estimation and hazardous event detection (Supervisors: Kari Heine, Mark Opmeer and Inês Cecílio).
Dan graduated with an MMath degree from the University of Sussex in 2016 and an MSc in Applied Mathematics at the University of Bath in 2017. He has undertaken various summer projects within the fields of harmonic analysis and wavelet theory, while his Master's thesis focused on a numerical spectral approximation of a class of oscillatory integral operators. Dan's exposure to Python via this project led him to become interested in machine learning and Bayesian programming, and he particularly enjoys how the rigorous results of probability can be used to powerful effect in everyday life. Away from mathematics, he enjoys learning and listening to music, football and (occasionally) cooking.
Jenny Delos Reyes
Working with Syngenta on mathematical modelling of formulation composition trade-offs for pesticides (Supervisors: Jane White, Begona Delgado-Charro and Josh Fernandes)
Jenny graduated with a BSc in Mathematics from the University of the West of England in 2017, and just recently completed her MSc in Modern Applications of Mathematics from the University of Bath. Her Master's dissertation focused on developing a semi-analytic method to approximate solutions to analytic partial differential equations using multivariate generalised Padè approximations. She is particularly interested in mathematical modelling, as well as numerical analysis. Besides mathematics, she enjoys cooking and listening to music.