Cameron Gordon
University of Adelaide
Cameron is a PhD student at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (University of Adelaide), supervised by Professor Simon Lucey. Before this he worked as an economist with the Queensland Government, which included work in commercial advisory and development of legislative reforms for mining rehabilitation.
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?)
My research focuses on compression. We try to take various machine learning models and find the most efficient to represent them – to make them small and easy to store or transfer between individuals. There are many applications, but a fun one is Neural Radiance Fields which are a way to represent a 3D scene (Luma AI has a number of example scenes). We try to take the memory needed to store these types of scenes down from MB to KB.
How did you get into the mathematical sciences? Was there someone or something that inspired you to this field?
I originally studied economics and briefly worked as a public servant with the Queensland Government. While there I had the chance to work with Wayne Cannon, the former State Actuary, who had the uncanny ability to step through whatever technical problem was being discussed logically and from first principles. He motivated me to take mathematics courses to the side, which eventually led me to going all in on a master’s degree and now my PhD.
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?
The most valuable part of the experience is the other participants – learning about their research, and hearing them get excited about whatever branch of mathematics they’re interested in. All of the lecturers were incredible – and it was great to be exposed to topics from bushfire modelling, to logistics, quantum machine learning, and mimetic algorithms.
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?
The focus of the Winter School on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals was one of the highlights for me. In particular, the focus on how a wide range of mathematical techniques can be applied to human challenges is something which continues to motivate and inspire me.
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?
The grant gave the opportunity to travel and attend the school. Most importantly it gave the opportunity to stay for two weeks in a residential college in Creswick, eat dinner with the other students, and explore the library of MATRIX House.
What advice would you give to someone who is considering applying for Winter School? How would you describe the conference to them?
The school is a rare opportunity to interact with students who have a true, unbridled passion for maths in all its forms and learn from some of the best researchers in the business.
Where do you want the mathematical sciences to take you? Where do you see yourself in five, ten years time?
As someone in the final stage of writing up a thesis, my main hope is that at some time in the next ten years I’ll have submitted it.
Any other feedback/comments you would like to provide on the travel grant or AMSI-MATRIX Winter School?
MATRIX house is a genuinely special place that all mathematics students should have the chance to visit. The work that AMSI does in connecting students through its winter and summer schools is a unique and irreplaceable feature of Australian mathematics education.