Research in the Mathematical Sciences

The twenty-first century has brought with it great opportunities for the mathematical sciences. Many areas of science, engineering, medicine, business, national defence and social science now rely on mathematical ideas and techniques. These include the modelling and analysis of complex systems, computer simulations, and the analysis and management of massive amounts of data.

Due to its fundamental and pervasive nature, mathematics plays a unique, central role in the education and research mission of any university.

The Division of Mathematical Sciences fosters a vibrant research culture, attracting a steady stream of visitors and international collaborators. Our faculty have been highly successful in attracting competitive research funding, publishing in prestigious journals, and speaking at premier research conferences.

Our Division has over 35 full time faculty members, 15+ visiting/adjunct/associate faculty members, 30+ postdoctoral and postgraduate researchers, and 30+ graduate students. We are extremely active in many fields of pure and applied mathematics research, including:

  • Pure Mathematics – number theory, geometry, algebra, analysis, topology, random matrix theory, probability.
  • Coding and Cryptography – algebraic coding theory, network coding, cipher design, secure multiparty computation, cryptanalysis.
  • Computational Mathematics – algorithm design, communication complexity, quantum computing, models of computation, algorithmic information theory, computability theory.
  • Applied Mathematics and Statistics – optimization in operations research, multiscale modeling methods, multivariate analysis, stochastic analysis, financial mathematics, applications to biology.

Research Highlights

Computational Imaging Reveals Deep Magma Caverns

NTU researchers have developed a powerful method for detecting underground magma flows, using advanced computational algorithms.
2 Aug 2024

Designing Molecules with Mathematically-Inspired AI

Associate Professor Xia Kelin introduces his cutting-edge research on AI models for molecular data analysis.
22 Jan 2024

Mathematical Algorithms to Aid E-Commerce

Assistant Professor Yan Zhenzhen is developing decision models to help online retailers improve their logistics.
1 Sep 2022
Assistant Professor Li Yi

Looking For Relationships (in a Big Data Stream)

A new algorithm for calculating correlations in big data sets provides an exponential improvement over earlier methods.
15 Oct 2021

Finding the Keys to the Kingdom

Mathematicians devise a novel attack on AES, one of the world's most important and commonly-used encryption algorithms.
3 Mar 2021

Balancing Economic and Public Health in a Pandemic

Stochastic epidemic modeling and deep learning algorithms can help craft optimal social distancing policies for epidemics.
18 Jan 2021

Reconstructing Messages from Incomplete Information

A new mathematical method for decoding incomplete message has implications for computer storage technology.
16 Nov 2020

Statistical Swings in Epidemic Models

Mathematical researchers have derived the conditions under which statistical swings can bring an epidemic to an end.
13 Apr 2020

How to Divide Resources Fairly

How should we assign emission limits to countries, or distribute apartments to households? A new analysis untangles such “fair division” problems.
19 Feb 2020