Women in control
by Thel Krollig
They are the all-female all-stars of UniSA’s Scheduling and Control Group, developing practical mathematical solutions to everyday logistical problems in business, management and the environment.
Dr Julia Piantadosi and Dr Xuan Vu, and PhD students Amie Albrecht, Paraskevi Thomas and Indu Wadhawan are significant players in the teams behind ongoing research into train timetable scheduling and freight management across Australia and the management of stormwater in Adelaide’s Northern suburbs.
These five women are collectively making a significant scientific impact through mathematical modelling in these two key environmental conservation areas.
"The most important aspect of this work for us is its relevance to everyday life. Seeing our mathematical knowledge used in an area that’s relevant to the community and that actually equates to significant environmental improvements or significant cost benefits is so rewarding," Albrecht said.
Dr Vu, Wadhawan and Albrecht are all working on railway scheduling and freight systems that involve improving time efficiency and fuel management.
Albrecht‘s PhD considers methods to integrate train timetabling with track maintenance scheduling in order to achieve the best overall result.
"The first and most important action a mathematician does is to model the situation correctly. A railway organisation may see a lot of trains that need scheduling; we see a rail network that can be described in a mathematical manner that we can then play with," Albrecht said.
Dr Vu is working on the FreightMiser system, created by a collaborative Rail CRC research team at UniSA and TMG International, providing long haul train drivers with an in-cab advice system to help with time management and minimise fuel consumption.
"Instead of wasting energy by driving too quickly and arriving ahead of schedule, the onboard system advises the optimum speed profile for drivers to reduce energy consumption while maintaining their schedule," Dr Vu said.
At the same time PhD student Indu Wadhawan is taking a broader look at the scheduling issue, looking at the many sources and destinations involved in freight travel and trying to avoid deadlocks.
For the past six years, Dr Julia Piantadosi has worked on stochastic applied optimal control in water cycle management.
She is a member of a large interdisciplinary team of researchers on water cycle management at Mawson Lakes with the support of an ARC Linkage grant. The work formed part of the basis for her PhD thesis, Optimal Policies for Storage of Urban Stormwater.
Dr Piantadosi now works as a research fellow on an ARC Discovery
project, Mathematical models for water cycle management together
with Dr John Boland, Professor Phil Howlett and
Dr Andrew Metcalfe.
"We propose new mathematical models for water management that formulate the catchment as a system of dams. Such systems may be used for water storage and flood mitigation. We consider a wide class of water management policies with stochastic, or random, supply," Dr Piantadosi said.
Complementing this is Thomas’ work on developing graphical simulation packages for optimal management and risk assessment in urban stormwater harvesting systems.
But underpinning their work are other challenges that the women agree they all face, such as working in predominantly male-dominated industries.
"It’s a very challenging component that is not related to the research, but related to communicating with the industry. We have all been in that situation often where we’re the only woman in the room except for someone taking notes," Albrecht said.
"And there is still an image that mathematicians are reserved and serious but, in the rail industry, you need to be able to project a down to earth image - to be seen as approachable so that what you’re talking about is considered just another way of solving a problem."
Dr Piantadosi said there is still a great deal of curiosity about what mathematicians actually do, especially female mathematicians.
"One of the first questions I get asked when I say I’m a mathematician is ‘oh, you’re a teacher?’ quickly followed by, ‘I hated maths at school’.
"I think it is important for people to understand how mathematics oils the machinery that makes everyday activities, like catching a train or watering the garden, more efficient and cost effective," she said.