SIAM PolyU Chapter Goes Live at International Computational Math Conference in Hong Kong

“It’s our great honor to serve at such an exciting event,” said a student helper at the second International Conference on Engineering and Computational Mathematics (ECM 2013), held December 16–18, 2013, at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). “It provides us a good opportunity to communicate with academic scholars from around the world.” The conference, for which SIAM was a cooperating society, attracted more than 300 participants from 21 countries. The volunteer student helpers were from the SIAM PolyU Student Chapter.

The chapter was officially founded on July 5, 2013, with support from the Department of Applied Mathematics at PolyU. As of the beginning of 2014, the chapter had 20 members, all postgraduate students at PolyU. The first order of business was the election of officers: Yang Zhou, president; Xuenan Feng, vice president; Jin Yang, treasurer; and Qiujin Peng, secretary.

As our first activity we served as student helpers at ECM 2013. Conference participants and organizers congratulated us on the creation of our chapter and recognized our contribution to ECM 2013 at the conference banquet.

At the banquet, some of us had the opportunity to gather for a photograph with several distinguished conference attendees—Tim Kelley (chair of the SIAM Board of Trustees), Timothy W. Tong (president of PolyU), Tony Chan (president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Sven Leyffer (vice president of SIAM), Kwok-yin Wong (dean of the Faculty of Science and Textiles, PolyU), and Xiaojun Chen (head of the Department of Applied Mathematics, PolyU).

Looking ahead, we plan to sponsor a series of activities designed to enhance members’ understanding of mathematical applications in real settings: talks by distinguished scholars from science and engineering departments, seminars with graduates from other universities, and field trips to financial and IT companies.

Up-to-date information about the chapter can be found here.