Alessandra Sacco
Swinburne University of Technology
Hi All! I’m currently a PhD student at SUT in Applied Mathematics.
Born and raised in Italy and unsure if academic career was the right way, I took the opportunity to move to Australia once I finished my master, eager to immerse in a completely new environment, meet new people and gain more experience, by diversifying topics and approaches – then this re-orienting manoeuvre brought me to dive in mathematics, although engineered filtered.
So, starting my PhD journey meant investigate and quantify how space technologies (as Micro -g settings) can be applied to cancer research, providing support in strategies development, exploiting math modelling.
Give me a quick overview of the type of mathematics you are studying, and/or the aims of your research and its potential applications/outcomes (how you would explain your work and studies to friends who don’t study maths?)
At the moment, we are trying to develop a model based on ODEs and PDFs, starting from probabilities and data analysis (specifically spectral analysis), with the goal of summarizing the behaviour of the cells in question across different environments. As already mentioned, these studies are mainly related to cancer research, with applications in space technologies.
If everything we have planned were to succeed, there could be very interesting outcomes, especially in terms of more in-depth experiments that could potentially be placed in space (ISS).
To my friends, I simply explained the underlying ‘magic’: cells (like any type of non-plant living organic matter) change shape and reproduce by following patterns that can be summarized—once the main driving agent is identified, the goal is to understand how to support it (somewhat like catalysts). All of this starts from experiments and empirically collected data that are properly tracked.
How did you get into the mathematical sciences? Was there someone or something that inspired you to this field?
I have always loved and enjoyed mathematics, especially when it’s used to uncover what still remains hidden from our eyes. Although my academic journey before the PhD took a different direction and when it came time to choose the topic of my master’s thesis, I realized I wasn’t truly interested in the manufacturing side of space (the more technical aspect). So, I decided to do it in my university’s Department of Mathematics, working on the analysis of deep-space data from the Voyager probes. No single person specifically inspired me to begin this path, but along the way I’ve met incredibly interesting people who have given me examples to look up to.
Winter School is designed to give students a deeper understanding of their area of research and expose them to others working in different fields/industries. Tell me about your Winter School experience. What was the most valuable part of the program for you?
To be honest, I had never taken part in an Australian winter school before, so I was really curious to see how the courses would be structured and delivered. I was impressed by the variety of topics offered and the countless applications they can have in different fields. From my point of view, and considering what I am examining in my project, once we identify the main objectives we are looking for in the cells, it could be extremely useful to master how to properly develop our own optimization algorithm—something I learned during the lectures of Papini and Moscato.
What was your main take away/s from AMSI-MATRIX Winter School? Something you learnt? A connection you made? Do you have new ideas for your work/research or see it in a new light?
What I definitely take away is the opportunity to have explored notions and approaches that I probably would have never thought of investigating otherwise, along with the idea of always keeping my research open and wide-ranging—whether academic or not.
I also met wonderful and fascinating people (something I did not expect at all) who I will carry in my heart, hopefully to meet them again.
You received a grant to attend AMSI-MATRIX Winter School. How important was this in terms of your ability to attend, fully participate in the program and meet others studying in similar fields?
That was absolutely crucial, it would be impossible participate without, especially for students needing to pay for their own rent and bills already.
What advice would you give to someone who is considering applying for Winter School? How would you describe the conference to them?
Do IT!
I would absolutely recommend it: as I mentioned before, you get the chance to explore different topics you wouldn’t normally approach, with the lucky possibility of discovering a new and unexpected passion—one that could even shape your future career. You’ll also surely meet many different people, with whom you can share a love for mathematics or board games. (And besides, it’s not a bad break at all from attending classes or working on your own project!)
Where do you want the mathematical sciences to take you? Where do you see yourself in five, ten years time?
For the future, I would like the engineering perspective to be more closely connected to the mathematical approach—especially for my project, which requires careful attention. I want to be able to make the most of the power of engineering in terms of process engineering, while leveraging the accuracy and precision of mathematics.
Additionally, I must admit that discussing with Prof. Moscato about the memetic algorithm applied to spacecraft manoeuvres, with clear references to mechanics and orbital dynamics, has encouraged me to revisit this field as soon as possible, or at least in the near future.
Any other feedback/comments you would like to provide on the travel grant or AMSI-MATRIX Winter School?
Placing the winter school in a remote area like Creswick was a winning move! It gave us the chance to spend quality time together, engage with one another, and truly get to know the other participants.
I firmly suggest organising more schools there!