SAMBa's 21st ITT took place at the BRLSI in Bath from 27-31 January 2025 with partners Ada Lovelace Centre / Diamond Light Source and Novartis.
SAMBa’s 21st ITT was held in partnership with the Ada Lovelace Centre/Diamond Light Source and Novartis, and gave us the opportunity to welcome back SAMBa alumna Margaret Duff who is now a Computational Scientist at STFC. The Ada Lovelace Centre is a centre of expertise in scientific software, research software engineering and data management with the primary objective of maximising the scientific impact of the STFC national facilities. Diamond Light Source is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility which works like a giant microscope, harnessing the power of electrons to produce bright light that is used to study everything from fossils to jet engines to viruses and vaccines. Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend people’s lives. As a leading global medicines company, Novartis uses innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need.
The ITT model brings participants from across SAMBa together with external partners to reformulate large challenges into mathematical questions that will lead to collaborative research projects.
During the first two days, groups considered potential mathematical questions and approaches to a range of challenges presented by the partners. For the remainder of the week, the participants worked in teams, each exploring a particular approach to one of the challenges. The ITT was brought to a close with students presenting the work done by their team during the week and making recommendations for potential future research directions.
The ITT is an incredibly exciting week. You come in with challenges and perhaps some preconceived ideas about how they might be solved, but the students push your thinking, challenge your understanding, and introduce fresh, innovative approaches. Throughout the week, they made remarkable progress in shaping and testing potential solutions. We all left the experience feeling inspired, energized, and eager to further explore the exciting new directions that emerged from the week.” Dr Paul Quinn – Director, Ada Lovelace Centre
The ITT is an incredibly exciting week. You come in with challenges and perhaps some preconceived ideas about how they might be solved, but the students push your thinking, challenge your understanding, and introduce fresh, innovative approaches. Throughout the week, they made remarkable progress in shaping and testing potential solutions. We all left the experience feeling inspired, energized, and eager to further explore the exciting new directions that emerged from the week.”
Dr Paul Quinn – Director, Ada Lovelace Centre
From Tuesday afternoon onwards, small teams of PhD students, staff and partners worked on mathematical approaches to the partner challenges:
Ada Lovelace Centre / Diamond Light Source
Novartis
This was my first time to participate in the ITT in Bath. I was excited to see how the staff and students during the group work would approach the challenge of applying neural ODEs to pharmacometrics data, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. My interaction with the group was very positive experience. The students were engaged in the learning about pharmacometrics, simulating pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data and applying neural ODEs to these data. I was really impressed by how quickly they understood the challenge and produced results, as well as putting together a presentation and presenting it in such a short period of time. I really enjoyed my time meeting and working with staff and students and would happily take part again.” Dr Gordon Graham – Director of Pharmacometrics, Novartis
This was my first time to participate in the ITT in Bath. I was excited to see how the staff and students during the group work would approach the challenge of applying neural ODEs to pharmacometrics data, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. My interaction with the group was very positive experience. The students were engaged in the learning about pharmacometrics, simulating pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data and applying neural ODEs to these data. I was really impressed by how quickly they understood the challenge and produced results, as well as putting together a presentation and presenting it in such a short period of time. I really enjoyed my time meeting and working with staff and students and would happily take part again.”
Dr Gordon Graham – Director of Pharmacometrics, Novartis
Following the ITT, students write technical reports which describe the potential of the research opportunities. ITT projects can lead to collaborative research for our SAMBa cohort via PhD topics or as smaller group projects. Through working with partners at SAMBa ITT’s, we have built deep and long-term relationships.
Returning to an ITT as a partner rather than a participant was both exciting and challenging—but overall, a great experience! In the first few days, being gently quizzed by students and staff as problems were dissected and refined pushed me to clarify my own understanding. The teams’ progress in the second half of the week was impressive, and I learned a lot from their deep mathematical expertise. Most of all, I was glad to see that the atmosphere of collaboration and curiosity remains as strong as ever! I look forward to seeing the next steps for these projects.”
Dr Margaret Duff, Computational Scientist STFC and SAMBa alumna
The next SAMBa ITT will be held from 9-13 June 2025 in Bath.
On Thursday 11 December 2014, the University of Bath hosted the official launch of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Statistical Applied Mathematics.
48 PhD students, academics and industrialists gathered at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution for the first SAMBa Integrative Think Tank.
SAMBa visited Mexico as part of a University delegation from 18-26 April.
For our second Integrative Think Tank (ITT) at the beginning of June, over 60 academics, students and industrialists came together for a week of collaboration.
The National University of Mongolia in Ulan Bator hosted the two week event on stochastic processes and applications.
Dr Alexandre Stauffer has been awarded an Early Career fellowship to develop mathematical tools to analyse random interacting systems.
Following a successful trip to Mexico in April, SAMBa staff have been awarded two grants to continue to build research links.
The first event in the BUC (Bath-UNAM-CIMAT) series took place in Guanajuato, Mexico during November and was a great success.
Lizabeth Peñaloza Velasco is joining the Department as a master’s student. She is the first Mexican exchange student to join the Department.
We hosted our biggest Integrative Think Tank (ITT3) yet in January with almost 90 people taking part.
