The Gordon Preston Fellowship aims to attract researchers for a sabbatical visit to Monash University
.
History: This Fellowship is named after Emeritus Professor Gordon Preston (1925-2015). Gordon Preston was an important contributor to algebraic semigroup theory, one of the founding professors of the School of Mathematics at Monash, and a respected head of school during his numerous appointments from 1963 until his retirement in 1990. Perhaps Preston's most important contribution to semigroup theory was a set of standardised definitions and terminology. In the 1960s, Preston and his colleague Alfred Clifford published a monograph that would unite the field and act as a reference for a generation of semigroup theorists: The Algebraic Theory of Semigroups, published in two volumes in 1961 and 1967.
Purpose: The purpose of the Gordon Preston Fellowship is to attract world-class academics for a sabbatical visit to Monash University. The fellow is expected to actively participate in the intellectual life of the School for a period of at least 3 months, with the aim to establish and/or enhance ongoing research collaborations.
Award: The award is up to AU$60,000 per fellowship to cover travel, visa, accommodation and local living expenses. Applications may request up to AU$1,300 per week for accommodation and up to $700 per week for living allowance. Note however that, due to budgetary constraints, some applications may be only partially funded.
Conditions: Awards are conditional on the visitor obtaining an appropriate visa. It is expected that the visitor will interact with researchers on current and planned research projects and deliver seminars. The visitor is also expected to give a short lecture series (totalling at least 8 hours) of interest to HDR students in the school. Visits must commence within 12 months of the offer.
Selection criteria: Applications will be assessed on the following criteria:
- Potential for high-quality collaborative research
- Benefit to the school (including from the lecture series)
Application process: Applications should be made by a single electronic submission via email to sci-maths-jobs@monash.edu and should include:
- A letter of support (up to one page in length) from a proposed host in the School of Mathematics, addressed to the selection committee. The goal of the letter is to endorse the application and briefly comment on how the visit satisfies the selection criteria. The letter should also contain the proposed visit dates and a brief budget estimate.
- A research proposal (up to one page in length), written at a level accessible to a broad mathematical audience. This may be distributed to the School of Mathematics in advance of the visit.
- CV of the proposed visitor (including qualifications, appointments, awards and publications).
Note: any changes to the proposed visit schedule must be within your original budget proposal amount, and must be approved by the committee prior to commencement of the visit.
Application rounds will be announced on this webpage when open.
Applications will be assessed by a selection panel. Potential hosts should contact the panel for further information and internal guidelines.
- Awardees 2017: Dr Elena Khomenko (Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands), Prof Celso Ribeiro (Fluminense Federal University).
- Awardees 2018: Prof Ron Aharoni (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology), Prof Johnathan Bardsley (University of Montana), Prof Jean-David Benamou (INRIA).
- Awardees 2019: A/Prof Vida Dujmović (University of Ottawa), Prof Gábor Lugosi (Pompeu Fabra University), Prof Kenji Nakanishi (Kyoto University).
- Awardees 2021: Prof Zdzislaw Brzezniak (University of York), Prof Zbigniew Galias (AGH University of Science and Technology), Prof Bruce Reed, Prof Marco Scarsini (LUISS).
- Awardees 2024: Prof Carsten Carstensen (Humboldt University of Berlin), Prof Marie Kratz (ESSEC Business School).
- Awardees 2025: Prof Maciej Capiński (AGH University of Science and Technology).
