Who we are
Currently, Department of Engineering Mathematics has four female members of academic staff: one Reader, two Lecturers and one Research Fellow. Below are their stories and reasons why they chose Engineering Mathematics.
Dr Hinke Osinga (Reader)
My adventures in mathematics, and dynamical systems in particular, started at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. After obtaining a PhD in 1996, I held postdoctoral research contracts at the Geometry Center, University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and Caltech, Pasadena. In January 2000 I joined the University of Exeter as a lecturer. I took up a lectureship at the University of Bristol in March 2001, and was promoted to Reader in August 2005. I have always been drawn to the applied/engineering end of mathematics, but worried that it was such an unusual research area for a woman; when I applied to the Department of Engineering Mathematics I knew I finally took charge of my career.
Dr Yuliya Kyrychko (Research Fellow)
My interest in Mathematics started when I won a place at a very prestigious school with special emphasis on mathematics and physics and was encouraged by my parents and grandparents to study maths. After finishing school in 1996 I decided to study Applied Mathematics at the Dnepropetrovsk National University, Ukraine, where I graduated in 2000 with BSc and in 2001 with MSc in Applied Mathematics. While writing my MSc thesis during 2000-2001, I went to Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus, Germany as an exchange student and studied Optimization and Applied Mathematics, as well as learned German. During 2001-2004 I did my PhD at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Surrey, UK, and in 2004 I moved to Bristol as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant. In 2007 I was awarded an EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. In my research I always strive to study problems which have real life applications as well as those which directly arise from industrial or biological systems, and Department of Engineering Mathematics is an ideal place to be for this kind of research.
Dr Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova (Lecturer)
I was appointed as a Lecturer at the Department of Engineering Mathematics, University of Bristol on the 1st August 2007. I received my PhD from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in October 2004, and subsequently held Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, US, from November 2004 to April 2006, and at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, France, from May 2006 to July 2007. Being in Engineering Mathematics Department provides me with a highly interdisciplinary environment that reflects the nature of my research and is the primary driving force behind the synthesis of new modelling ideas.
Dr Caroline Colijn (Lecturer)
I have worked on applying mathematical modelling approaches to the analysis of a wide variety of biological systems for the past 5 years. I have worked on complex biological regulation with delays and applied this work to interacting populations of cells in hematopoietic disease, using both numerical and analytical approaches to understand quantitative and qualitative features of data on oscillating cell numbers. I spent time as a postdoc at the Harvard School of Public Health working on tuberculosis, and there became interested in epidemic modelling of complex diseases with multiple strains and in the origins of drug resistance. I am also interested in how biological networks shape the dynamics and function of biological systems at different scales, and have modelled the role of networks in epidemics, and also the regulation of intracellular metabolic networks. Before working on mathematical modelling in biology I studied quantum physics. I was excited to work in a department which, being in an Engineering faculty, places an emphasis on applied work, but at the same time be in a Department with strong theoretical foundation both in nonlinear dynamics and in artificial intelligence. Both of these are major components of research in theoretical biology, and indeed, the Department's plan to build up its research in theoretical and computational biology appealed to me. Also, interdisciplinary work requires strong collaborations, and I was impressed by the collegial atmosphere and the many people open to collaboration within the Department and in other parts of the University.
Dr Hinke Osinga (Reader)
My adventures in mathematics, and dynamical systems in particular, started at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. After obtaining a PhD in 1996, I held postdoctoral research contracts at the Geometry Center, University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and Caltech, Pasadena. In January 2000 I joined the University of Exeter as a lecturer. I took up a lectureship at the University of Bristol in March 2001, and was promoted to Reader in August 2005. I have always been drawn to the applied/engineering end of mathematics, but worried that it was such an unusual research area for a woman; when I applied to the Department of Engineering Mathematics I knew I finally took charge of my career.
Dr Yuliya Kyrychko (Research Fellow)
My interest in Mathematics started when I won a place at a very prestigious school with special emphasis on mathematics and physics and was encouraged by my parents and grandparents to study maths. After finishing school in 1996 I decided to study Applied Mathematics at the Dnepropetrovsk National University, Ukraine, where I graduated in 2000 with BSc and in 2001 with MSc in Applied Mathematics. While writing my MSc thesis during 2000-2001, I went to Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus, Germany as an exchange student and studied Optimization and Applied Mathematics, as well as learned German. During 2001-2004 I did my PhD at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Surrey, UK, and in 2004 I moved to Bristol as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant. In 2007 I was awarded an EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. In my research I always strive to study problems which have real life applications as well as those which directly arise from industrial or biological systems, and Department of Engineering Mathematics is an ideal place to be for this kind of research.
Dr Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova (Lecturer)
I was appointed as a Lecturer at the Department of Engineering Mathematics, University of Bristol on the 1st August 2007. I received my PhD from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in October 2004, and subsequently held Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, US, from November 2004 to April 2006, and at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, France, from May 2006 to July 2007. Being in Engineering Mathematics Department provides me with a highly interdisciplinary environment that reflects the nature of my research and is the primary driving force behind the synthesis of new modelling ideas.
Dr Caroline Colijn (Lecturer)
I have worked on applying mathematical modelling approaches to the analysis of a wide variety of biological systems for the past 5 years. I have worked on complex biological regulation with delays and applied this work to interacting populations of cells in hematopoietic disease, using both numerical and analytical approaches to understand quantitative and qualitative features of data on oscillating cell numbers. I spent time as a postdoc at the Harvard School of Public Health working on tuberculosis, and there became interested in epidemic modelling of complex diseases with multiple strains and in the origins of drug resistance. I am also interested in how biological networks shape the dynamics and function of biological systems at different scales, and have modelled the role of networks in epidemics, and also the regulation of intracellular metabolic networks. Before working on mathematical modelling in biology I studied quantum physics. I was excited to work in a department which, being in an Engineering faculty, places an emphasis on applied work, but at the same time be in a Department with strong theoretical foundation both in nonlinear dynamics and in artificial intelligence. Both of these are major components of research in theoretical biology, and indeed, the Department's plan to build up its research in theoretical and computational biology appealed to me. Also, interdisciplinary work requires strong collaborations, and I was impressed by the collegial atmosphere and the many people open to collaboration within the Department and in other parts of the University.