Congratulations to James East

Congratulations to Dr James East, Honorary Associate and former postgraduate of the School, Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing Engineering and Mathematics at Western Sydney University, on the award of a Future Fellowship, the only one in this round with respect to pure mathematics.

Title of project: Diagram categories and transformation semigroups.

Summary: A structural understanding of diagram categories is essential in many branches of mathematics and science. Despite this, very few methods for studying such categories are available, a fact this pure mathematics project seeks to rectify. By building strong bridges between diagram categories and semigroup theory, a field of abstract algebra that models transformation and change, the structure of diagram categories may be unlocked with powerful semigroup tools developed by the applicant investigator. Diagrammatic insights will also yield new ways to study semigroups, and the many other mathematical structures they interact with. Outcomes will have a lasting impact on both theories as well as the many fields influenced by them.