The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) is pleased to announce the appointment of two distinguished academics to its Board.
Professor James McCoy, from the University of Newcastle, has been elected unopposed as a representative of AMSI’s Full Members/Joint Venture Partners. His term will commence in July 2025 and run through to July 2027.
Professor McCoy was recently AMSI’s Deputy Director from 2023-2025. Completing his PhD in pure mathematics in 2002 at Monash University, Professor McCoy has since held positions at the Australian National University, the University of Wollongong and the University of Newcastle. In July 2018, he become the University of Newcastle’s Head of Mathematics. In 2020, Professor McCoy relinquished this role to take up a secondment to the Vice Chancellor’s Academic Excellence team, where he contributed to several projects. He has since joined the College of Engineering, Science and Environment (CESE) College Board and Academic Senate, is the University’s ERA Champion for applied mathematics and is a member of the team responsible for development of the University’s Athena SWAN silver application. Since 2018, Professor McCoy has been the University’s AMSI Joint Venture Partner representative.
Professor McCoy will replace Associate Professor Sanjeeva Balasuriya (University of Adelaide), whose dedicated service to the AMSI Board concludes in July after two impactful terms. AMSI extends its sincere gratitude to Associate Professor Balasuriya for his ongoing support of AMSI and significant contributions over his tenure.
In addition, AMSI is delighted to welcome Professor Nicola Armstrong as the Associate Member Representative on the AMSI Board. Professor Armstrong is a teaching and research academic at Curtin University and currently serves as the Discipline Lead of Mathematics and Statistics. A statistician by training, she brings extensive expertise in the interdisciplinary application of statistics to medical and biological research.
Professor Armstrong is a nationally recognised voice on equitable ATAR scaling and STEM curriculum development. She currently chairs the SCSA/TISC scaling committee in Western Australia and contributes to AMSI’s national review of Data Science. Her insights will strengthen AMSI’s engagement across the statistical sciences and Australia’s associate member universities.
Both appointments reflect AMSI’s ongoing commitment to representing the diversity and depth of the Australian mathematical sciences community.
We warmly congratulate Professor McCoy and Professor Armstrong on their appointments and look forward to their leadership contributions.
