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1994 Kirkman Medal awarded to Robert Craigen

 From BICA (15) 1995: The 1995 Kirkman Medals of the ICA The 1995 Kirkman Medals of the ICA are awarded to members of the Institute who received their doctoral degrees in 1991, 1992, or 1993, and who have already produced a substantial amount of research work of exceptional quality. The Kirkman Medals were inaugurated in 1994, and the 1995 Kirkman Medals, the first to be granted, have been awarded to Jonathan Jedwab and Robert Craigen. We give summaries of the much more extensive citations and publication lists that were supplied by the nominators of these two outstanding young researchers. Robert Craigen received his Bachelor's degree from the University of British Columbia and both his Master's and Doctorate from the University of Waterloo; his supervisor for the Ph.D. (1991) was Larry Cummings. Since graduation, he has at the University of Lethbridge. Robert Craigen has developed a very original method of composing matrices that he calls the "weaving method"

1994 Hall Medal awarded to Doug Stinson

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 From BICA (15) 1995: The 1995 Hall Medals of the ICA The Hall Medals of the ICA are awarded to Fellows of the Institute who have not passed age 40 and who have already produced a distinguished corpus of significant research work. The Hall Medals were inaugurated in 1994, and the 1995 Hall Medals, the first to be granted, have been awarded to Ortrud Ruth Oellerman, Christopher Andrew Rodger, and Douglas Robert Stinson. We herewith give summaries of the much more extensive citations and publication lists that were supplied by the nominators of these three scholars. Doug Stinson did his undergraduate work in Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo. After a master's degree at Ohio state, under Rick Wilson, he returned to Waterloo where he worked under Ron Mullin and produced an outstanding doctoral thesis on frames. After spending eight years as a University Research Fellow at the University of Manitoba, during which time he reached the rank of Full Professor,

1994 Hall Medal awarded to Chris Rodger

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 From BICA (15) 1995: The 1995 Hall Medals of the ICA The Hall Medals of the ICA are awarded to Fellows of the Institute who have not passed age 40 and who have already produced a distinguished corpus of significant research work. The Hall Medals were inaugurated in 1994, and the 1995 Hall Medals, the first to be granted, have been awarded to Ortrud Ruth Oellerman, Christopher Andrew Rodger, and Douglas Robert Stinson. We herewith give summaries of the much more extensive citations and publication lists that were supplied by the nominators of these three scholars. After obtaining a master's degree at the University of Sydney in Australia, under Jennifer Seberry, Chris Rodger went to the University of Reading for a Ph.D. under the direction of Tony Hilton. He is currently at Auburn University where he holds the position of Alumni Professor in the Department of Discrete and Statistical Science. Author of over seventy papers in a wide diversity of journals, he has made many signif

1994 Hall Medal awarded to Ortrud Oellerman

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 From BICA (15) 1995: The 1994 Hall Medals of the ICA   The Hall Medals of the ICA are awarded to Fellows of the Institute who have not passed age 40 and who have already produced a distinguished corpus of significant research work. The Hall Medals were inaugurated in 1994, and the 1995 Hall Medals, the first to be granted, have been awarded to Ortrud Ruth Oellerman, Christopher Andrew Rodger, and Douglas Robert Stinson. We herewith give summaries of the much more extensive citations and publication lists that were supplied by the nominators of these three scholars. After a master's degree at the University of Natal, in Durban, South Africa, under the direction of Henda Swart, Ortrud Oellerman completed her doctorate at Western Michigan University under Gary Chartrand. After five years on the faculty at the University of Natal, she followed her husband, who is a medical   doctor, to Canada and now holds an adjunct appointment at Brandon University. She has contributed to many

1994 Euler medal awarded to Joseph Thas

  From BICA (15) 1995: The 1994 Euler Medal of the ICA The Euler Medal of the ICA provides recognition for a distinguished lifetime career contribution to combinatorial research by a Fellow of the ICA who is still active in research. The 1995 Euler Medal has been awarded to Professor Joseph A. Thas of the University of Ghent, Belgium. Professor Thas has been a Full Professor at the University of Ghent since 1970. He has published 5 books and over 150 papers, is a member of the Belgium Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Fine Arts (since 1988), and serves on the editorial board of various journals. Among other honours he has received the Scientific Louis Empain Award and the Francois Deruyts Award of the Royal Academy of Belgium. Professor Thas is recognized as one of the world leaders in the field of finite geometry. In his early work, among many original results, he extended the results of Segre on arcs and caps in PG(r,q) to spaces over matrix algebras. Since 1972, he has been heav

CITATION OF PROFESSOR CRISPIN NASH-WILLIAMS

 From BICA (14) 1995: CITATION OF PROFESSOR CRISPIN NASH-WILLIAMS FOR THE HONORARY DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MATHEMATICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO  •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Crispin St.John Alvah Nash-Williams has been a leading contributor to combinatorial mathematics for thirty-five years. Beginning at a time when the subject was relatively undeveloped, he led the way in identifying important research problems, developing new techniques, and establishing the highest standards of rigour and integrity. His elegant and deep results have paved the way for many of the key developments in recent years. Professor Nash-Williams is especially recognized for his work on infinite graph theory. He has provided answers to many fundamental questions in this area. including existence of Hamiltonian and Euler paths, existence of transversals, and the problem of reconstruction. Perhaps most notable are his contributions to the theory of well-quasi-ordering, which not only e

Frank and the Hyena

 From BICA (13) 1995 Frank and the Hyena* • This article represents a "roast" that was given in honour of Professor Harary at the 255th Anniversary of Graph Theory conference in Durban. Usually roasts are restricted to Politicians, but Frank's prominence propelled him into the roast circuit. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure and an honor to introduce Frank Harary, our evening's distinguished speaker. No praise would be too much for this gentleman. No reward, for his accomplishments, would be too great. Rather than bore you with details of his uncountable achievements, I'll restrict my remarks to an event to which I personally witnessed several years ago. There are many false rumors about this episode, and they seem to be growing at an exponential rate. Further, our good colleague is too humble and modest a man to speak of them himself. So, I hope during this time we can clear the record. The problem came when Frank fell asleep during one of h

In Memoriam Peter O'Halloran

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From BICA (13) 1995:  Peter O'Halloran (right) presenting an Erdös award to Ron Dunkley. One of Peter's last official acts. Photo from BICA (13) 1995. PETER O'HALLORAN A PERSONAL TRIBUTE R.G. Stanton, University of Manitoba Early in September, 1 was talking on the telephone, from the University of Leeds, with Peter O'Halloran at his home; he was his usual cheerful self, but it was evident, from his coughing, that he was extremely unwell. When Peter Taylor sent me an email later in the month that Peter had died, I felt a deep because the mathematical world has lost a man who could still have contributed a great deal. But we can all be very proud of the enormous impact that he has had on Australian mathematics and, indeed, on world mathematics. My own feeling is that Peter O'Halloran contributed more to the development of mathematics in the past 25 years than any other single person. Those of us who write research papers typically publish results that are read b

A note on Rudi Mathon

From BICA (12) 1994 by John van Rees Rudi Mathon Professor, University of Toronto We are always looking for new methods to tackle our favourite intractable problems. Those of us who know the hill-climbing and simulated annealing techniques realize that these are wonderful algorithms for finding various combinatorial objects. But often these algorithms are not powerful enough to do the job. So it is with great interest that we learn from Rudi Mathon, via his talk at the Vermont Summer Workshop, that there is a new variation to the search algorithms developed by the optimization people that may help us all. Rudi was examining Steiner Systems, S(t,k,v), exact packings of k-sets from a v-set with the property that each t-set occurs exactly once. For t ≥ 5, there are only 9 orders known to S(5,6,168). Rudi assumed the design had PSL2(23) as an automorphism group, obtained the 5-set and 6-set orbit representatives, and found which 6-set orbit representative covered which 5-set orbit r

Carsten Thomassen, Honorary Fellow

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On Friday, September 27, 2019, Carsten Thomassen gave the Tutte Distinguished Lecture at University of Waterloo.             Title:  Countable weighted graphs with no unfriendly partitions             Abstract:   The vertex set of every finite graph can be partitioned into two sets such              that each vertex has at least as many vertices in the opposite set as in its own set.                    Such a partition is called unfriendly. It is known that there are infinite graphs with                no unfriendly partition but it is open if every countable graph has an unfriendly                    partition. In this talk we show that the there are edge-weighted countable graphs                  with no unfriendly partition. Following the talk, Dr Stinson presented him with the certificate naming him an Honorary Fellow of the ICA.  Pictures are below the link to his citation: https://combinatoricsinstitute.blogspot.com/2019/04/dr-carsten-thomassen-named-honorary.html

In Memoriam Frank Yates 1902-1994

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From BICA 12(1994) Obituary: Frank Yates May 12, 1902-June 17, 1994 It is impossible to summarise the research achievements of one of the great statisticians of this century in a brief obituary. The Times (Saturday, June 25, 1994) spends half of its space in giving an account of the work Dr Yates did during the War in analysing the strike patterns of V-ls around London so as to identify the sites being targeted, and thus aid in the deployment of interceptor fighter squadrons. A better insight into the enormous impact of the work of Dr Yates is provided by the article F.Y.-A Personal Note, by M.J.R. Healy (Utilitas Mathematica, 21A, 1982, 3-12); this article introduces the two special volumes that were published on the occasion of Dr Yates's 80th birthday. Healy's article shows the enormous contribution that Yates made to experimental design and to the analysis of design, as well as his later major contributions to sampling and to the use of computers in statistical analy

News of Member Jeff Dinitz

From BICA (11) 1994 PERSONALITY OF THE MONTH Jeff Dinitz Professor, University of Vermont The Bulletin has to start this vignette with an apology to Jeff. By a fluke, Jeffs name was left off the list of members of the Council of the ICA. This omission has now been corrected - see page 1 of this issue of the Bulletin.  Jeff is a member of Council for a three-year term from 1993 to 1996. In 1992, Jeff Dinitz and Doug Stinson, published Contemporary Design Theory, A Collection of Surveys (John Wiley and Sons, Inc.). This book was reviewed in Volume 9 of the Bulletin (page 9), and continues to receive a lot of well deserved acclaim; Jeff and Doug seem to have filled a real need with this timely and outstanding work. Last year, graph theorists received electrifying news from Jeff on the famous problem of the number of one factorizations of K_12 . Here is an extract from the email message of Monday, September 20, 1993 at 16:04:28. Theorem. There are 526,915,620 non-isomorphi

Dr Ronald Graham awarded the 1993 Euler Medal of the ICA

EULER MEDALS FOR 1993 In announcing the Euler Medallists for 1993, a reminder about the qualifications for the Medals is in order. Up to two Euler Medals per year may be awarded. A recipient must be a Fellow of the ICA and must have made a particularly distinguished lifetime career contribution to research in Combinatorics; the Euler Medal is not meant to recognize one specific achievement. Furthermore, a recipient should still be active in research. By majority vote of the ICA Council, 1993 Euler Medals have been awarded to Claude Berge, one of the world's most distinguished graph theorists, and Ronald Graham, a research combinatoricist of enormous breadth, depth, and influence. Members of the ICA may be interested in the extremely brief summaries of their research careers that follow. Ronald L. Graham . Ph.D., University of California (Berkeley), NSF Fellow and Woodrow Wilson Fellow. 1962- Adjunct Director, Research, Information Sciences Division AT&T Bell Labs 198

Dr Claude Berge awarded the 1993 Euler Medal of the ICA

EULER MEDALS FOR 1993 In announcing the Euler Medallists for 1993, a reminder about the qualifications for the Medals is in order. Up to two Euler Medals per year may be awarded. A recipient must be a Fellow of the ICA and must have made a particularly distinguished lifetime career contribution to research in Combinatorics; the Euler Medal is not meant to recognize one specific achievement. Furthermore, a recipient should still be active in research. By majority vote of the ICA Council, 1993 Euler Medals have been awarded to Claude Berge, one of the world's most distinguished graph theorists, and Ronald Graham, a research combinatoricist of enormous breadth, depth, and influence. Members of the ICA may be interested in the extremely brief summaries of their research careers that follow. Claude Berge . Born 5.06.1926 at Paris, PhD, University of Paris, 1952. 1952 Research Associate, National Centre for Scientific Research (C.N.R.S., Paris). 1956-57 Visiting professor, Uni

In memoriam STEFAN ZNAM

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From BICA (10) 1994 STEFAN ZNAM 1936-1993 Alex Rosa, J. Siran Štefan Znám, Professor of Mathematics at Comenius University in Bratislava and a leading Slovak graph theorist and number theorist, passed away suddenly July 17, 1993. After obtaining his first degree in mathematics in 1959, Štefan Znám started his scientific career working in number theory. His results on covering systems of congruences have become a classic. Later in the sixties, partly through working on Zarankiewicz's problem, he became more and more interested in graph theory which was at the time becoming a rapidly expanding discipline. His main interest was in extremal problems, but very soon he was contributing substantial papers in other areas, such as graph decompositions. He was an author or co-author of well over 50 original papers· on these and various other subjects. Several of these papers, including one which settles completely the spectrum problem for maximal partial Steiner triple systems, are

1993 AGM Minutes

From BICA (9) 1993 1993 Annual General Meeting of The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications The 1993 Annual General Meeting of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications took place at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 7, in the Westminster Theatre of Keele University, during the Fourteenth British Combinatorial Conference. Since the Conference organizers had graciously scheduled the meeting into the Conference agenda, there was a large attendance of members of the ICA, as well as additional visitors. Professor Ronald Read, from the Council of the Institute, took the chair. Financial Report for the Year 1992 . This report was presented by Professor R.G. Stanton. The Financial Report was accepted (motion by Nash-Williams, seconded by Grannell). A copy of the report is appended to this account of the AGM. Report on Activities of Executive and Council . Professor Read spoke from the Chair, and pointed out that most of the activities of the Executive and Coun

In memoriam Bruce A Anderson

From BICA (8) 1993 Bruce A. Anderson May 11, 1939—May 5, 1992 P.A. Leonard Department of Mathematics, Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287-1804, USA Bruce A. Anderson, a Foundation Fellow of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications, passed away on May 5, 1992, after an illness of two months. His death brought the loss of a valued contributor to combinatorial mathematics. This note is a brief summary of his life and work. Bruce was born May 11, 1939, in Bismarck, North Dakota. He completed his B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Iowa. His supervisor was Steve Armentrout, a topologist in the tradition of R.L. Moore. In 1966 Bruce joined the Department of Mathematics at Arizona State University where he spent his entire career. When he arrived, the department had an active group of general topol-ogists, and Bruce continued his research and directed his only Ph.D. student in that area. Throughout his career he was an exponent of the R.L. Moore