Associate Professor Sanjeeva Balasuriya
Associate Professor
School of Mathematical Sciences
Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences
This is a University-maintained website. More information---including downloadable publications and topics for research students---is available from my personal website.
I am interested in problems which lie at the interface between mathematics and its applications. The projects I work on usually emerge directly from physical or biological instances. While using mathematical methods is ideally highly attractive in better understanding underlying mechanisms and their effects, it is often necessary to also use computational methods to investigate problems intractable to analysis, or to supplement theoretical results. I also work on developing and extending mathematical theories, as motivated by applications.
Research Areas
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For more information on my research, please visit my "Publications" page.
Awards and Grants
- Endeavour Research Leadership Award, presented by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training (2019)
- Future Fellowship, awarded by the Australian Research Council, ''Flow structures and transport: Predictability and control'' (2014-2018)
- J.H. Michell Medal, presented by the Australia and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ANZIAM) Society (2006)
- Collaboration grant for mathematicians, Simons Foundation, USA (2012-2017)
- Discovery Grant (jointly with N.-T. Nguyen, A. Nguyen, G. Evans, E. Bormashenko, O. Gendelman and J. Ekberg), Australian Research Council, ''Engineering floating liquid marbles for three-dimensional cell cultures'' (2017-2020)
- Plenary speaker, ANZIAM Conference, Sydney (2008)
- Stella Dafermos Award, Brown University, USA (1996)
- Barge Mathematics Prize, Lafayette College, USA (1989,1990)
Calls for Papers
- As the Guest Editor, I am soliciting articles for the special issue on Applied Analysis of Ordinary Differential Equations, Mathematics, MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. [indexed in ESCI-Web of Science/Zentralblatt MATH/Scopus]
- I am also on the Editorial Board of Advances in Theoretical and Applied Mathematics. [indexed in Mathematical Reviews/MathSciNet/Zentralblatt MATH/EBSCO]
Recent and Forthcoming Activities (2016-)
- Co-organiser (with Michel Speetjens ) of Minisymposium on "Data-driven prediction and modeling in geophysical fluid dynamics," SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems, Snowbird, Utah, USA (May 2018).
- Invited participant, Workshop on Dynamical Systems: Theory and Applications, Blackheath, NSW, Australia (November 2018).
- Speaker, Workshop in Stochastic Analysis, Australian National University, Canberra (November 2018).
- Invited speaker, Joint Australia-Japan Workshop on Dynamical Systems with Applications in Life Sciences, Biei, Japan (July 2018).
- Invited speaker, 11th MSJ-SI Symposium on the Role of Metrics in the Theory of Partial Differential Equations, Hokkaido University, Japan (July 2018).
- Co-organiser (with Michel Speetjens ) of Minisymposium on "Lagrangian methods for scalar transport in porous media," InterPore (International Society for Porous Media Annual Conference), New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (May 2018).
- Speaker, DynamIC seminar, Imperial College, UK (January 2018).
- Speaker, Special Session on "Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems," Australian Mathematical Society Conference, Sydney, NSW, Australia (December 2017).
- Invited participant, Workshop on Dynamical Systems: Theory and Applications, Blackheath, NSW, Australia (November 2017).
- Co-organiser (with Marko Budisic ), Minisymposium on "Recent advances in characterization of nonautonomous dynamical transport," SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems, Snowbird, Utah, USA (May 2017).
- Co-organiser (with Daan Crommelin , Gary Froyland , Adam Monahan , Nick Ouellette and Laure Zanna ), Workshop on Transport in Unsteady Flows: From Deterministic Structures to Stochastic Models and Back Again, Banff International Research Station, Canada (January 2017).
- Invited participant, Workshop on Advances in Ergodic Theory, Hyperbolic Dynamics and Statistical Laws, Australian National University, Canberra (November 2016).
- Speaker, Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society, Division of Fluids Dynamics, Portland, Oregon, USA (November 2016).
- Speaker, Information Technology and Mathematical Science Seminar, University of South Australia (September 2016).
- Organising committee, Conference on Ordinary Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems (CODEDS), Suzou, China (July 2016).
- Co-organiser (with Gary Froyland ), Special Session on "Mixing in Dynamical System: Theory, Modeling and Applications, from Micro- to Geophysical Scales," 11th AIMS Conference on Dynamical Systems, Differential Equations and Applications, Orlando, Florida, USA (July 2016).
- Speaker, International Workshop on Fluid-Structure Interaction Problems, National University of Singapore (May/June 2016).
- Invited participant, AmeriMech Symposium on Fluid Transport and Nonlinear Dynamics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, USA (May 2016).
- Speaker, PDE/Applied Math Seminar, University of Maryland-College Park, USA (February 2016).
- Speaker, David A. Walsh '67 Arts and Sciences Seminar, Clarkson University, USA (February 2016).
- Speaker, Environmental and Fluid Mechanics Seminar, Stanford University, USA (January 2016).
Selected Past Activities (-2015)
- Speaker, Physical Oceanography Seminar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA (June 2015).
- Speaker, Session on "Dynamical Systems, Ergodic Theory and Applications," Canadian Mathematical Society Summer Meeting, Prince Edward Island, Canada (June 2015).
- Speaker, Applied and Computational Mathematics Seminar, Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA (May 2015).
- 3 week visit to work with Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique physical oceanographers at the Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement at Grenoble, France (March 2015).
- Speaker, Workshop on Set-Oriented Numerics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand (September 2014).
- Speaker, Séminaire, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France (July 2014).
- Co-organiser (with Kathrin Padberg-Gehle and Wenbo Tang ), Special Session on "Transport barriers in unsteady fluid flows," 10th AIMS Conference on Dynamical Systems, Differential Equations and Applications, Madrid, Spain (July 2014).
- Speaker, DynamIC seminar, Imperial College, UK (July 2014).
- Co-organiser (with George Haller , Nicholas Ouellette and Vered Rom-Kedar), Workshop on Mixing, Transport and Coherent Structures, Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, Oberwolfach, Germany (January/February 2014).
- Co-organiser (with Jim Meiss ) of Minisymposium on "Nonautonomous Dynamics and Invariant Manifolds: Recent Progress in Theory and Applications," SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems, Snowbird, Utah, USA (May 2013).
- Speaker, Mathematisches Seminar, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany (March 2013).
- Speaker, Analysis, Dynamics and Applications Seminar, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA (November 2012).
- Speaker at Minisymposium on "Transport and Metastability in Open and Time-dependent Dynamical Systems," 7th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Vancouver, Canada (July 2011).
- Co-organiser (with Arjen Doelman , Tasso Kaper , Joceline Lega and Björn Sandstede ), Conference on Geometric Methods for Infinite-Dimensional Dynamical Systems, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA (November 2011).
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Journals
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Books
Year Citation 2016 Balasuriya, S. (2016). Barriers and Transport in Unsteady Flows: A Melnikov Approach (Vol. 21). Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Press (SIAM). -
Book Chapters
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Conference Items
Year Citation 2014 Balasuriya, S. (2014). Flow barriers in realistic flows, and their relationship to invariant manifolds. Poster session presented at the meeting of Oberwolfach Reports. Zurich: European Mathematical Society. — Tam, A., Balasuriya, S., Green, E., & Binder, B. (n.d.). Understanding floral pattern formation in yeast biofilms. Poster session presented at the meeting of Unknown Conference.
- Endeavour Research Leadership Award, presented by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training (2019)
- Future Fellowship, awarded by the Australian Research Council, ''Flow structures and transport: Predictability and control, '' (2014-2018)
- Collaboration grant for mathematicians, Simons Foundation, USA (2012-2017)
- Discovery Grant (jointly with N.-T. Nguyen, A. Nguyen, G. Evans, E. Bormashenko, O. Gendelman and J. Ekberg), Australian Research Council, ''Engineering floating liquid marbles for three-dimensional cell cultures,'' (2017-2020)
Current teaching (Semester 1, 2019)
- Mathematics IB: Calculus [newly redeveloped]
- Multivariable and Complex Calculus
Registered students can access course material via MyUni.
Teaching profile
I have extensive teaching experience, acquired through teaching a variety of courses with different expectations across three continents. These courses run the gamut from large lectures to hundreds of students to small courses with two students, from examination-driven to project-driven, from chalk-and-talk to activity-based student-centred, from purely theoretical to very applied, from highly reliant on technology to strongly reliant on intuition, from mathematics for engineering to mathematics for the humanities. I have, for many years, developed curricula for and employed currently "hot" ideas in teaching: activity- and discovery-based learning, peer assessment, open-book and take-home examinations, student-run classes, flipping classrooms in various ways, project-driven courses, technology-enabled peer-instruction, etc, and have also developed course- and instructor-evaluation tools.
I have taught at Brown University (USA), the University of Sydney, the University of Adelaide, the University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka), Oberlin College (USA) and Connecticut College (USA). The last two of these are "liberal arts" undergraduate institutions, renowned for their teaching excellence and broad-based education. These institutions provide innovative pedagogy and curricula in small class settings, and attract excellent undergraduates. I owe a lot of my teaching expertise and reputation to the insight gained at these colleges, and to interactions with colleagues and students everywhere that I have taught.
Courses taught
I have taught across the curriculum, from undergraduate courses for non-specialists to honours and masters level courses. A rough idea of the numbers of courses I have taught is given below.
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I have extensive experience in curriculum development, both at the level of individual courses, and in serving in institutional committees with a broader oversight. Courses to which I have brought a particularly new flavour include a course on "environmental modelling" which was cross-listed between mathematics and environmental studies, and a one-semester course "calculus with precalculus" which covers both differentiation and integration, aimed at students from non-physical science backgrounds who have not covered precalculus topics previously and yet insists on providing intuition for every aspect covered.
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Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2019 Principal Supervisor Using Data Assimilation and Lagrangian Coherent Structure Techniques to Improve Error Quantification in Geophysical and Climate Models Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Rose Joy Crocker 2018 Principal Supervisor A Quantitative Evaluation of Lagrangian Coherent Structure Detection Methods Based on Experimental and Computational Limitations Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Aleksandar Badza 2016 Co-Supervisor Mathematical Modelling of Pattern Formation in Biofilms Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Alexander Tam -
Other Supervision Activities
Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name 2016 - ongoing External Supervisor Stretching and folding in data-driven and chaotic systems Clarkson University, USA Clarkson does not have official external supervisors; this is an unofficial capacity. The student has joint publications with me already. Doctorate — K.G. Sulalitha Priyankara 2015 - 2016 External Supervisor Patterns in natural systems Leiden University (Netherlands) This was an unoffical external supervision; a joint publication resulted from this, and the student graduated in 2016. Doctorate — Lotte Sewalt
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