Welcome to the October 2017 edition of the School newsletter. At this time of year we are delighted to welcome new students to the School, both undergraduate and postgraduate. Our numbers continue to increase and this year there has been spectacular growth in our MSc courses, particularly through the new Data Analytics degree, delivered in both on-campus and on-line forms. This is an exciting and important development for us. It is also a great pleasure to welcome new staff. There are more details elsewhere in the newsletter, which will give us all a head-start in getting to know our new colleagues. It is a real boost to the School to be able to recruit such talented people.

Very sadly, we lost our colleague Jon Nimmo earlier in the year. The tribute to Jon highlights both his very high standing in the academic community and how much he was appreciated as a colleague and friend within the School. Jon will be greatly missed.

The start of a new session always sees some changes in the roles played by different staff. This year John McColl and Claire Miller completed several years of excellent service as Convenor of Learning and Teaching and Senior Adviser respectively. Very many thanks to both for outstanding performances in these two particularly important School responsibilities. They have now been succeeded by Tara Brendle and Steve Roper, whom we wish well in their new roles.

In September, we held various events to mark both our move to the new building and Maths Week Scotland, a government initiative to celebrate the mathematical sciences in education and beyond. The visits by our own postgraduate students to local schools was a great success and you will find a very entertaining report on that. Our events culminated in a public talk by Heather Reid on `Maths, the Weather, and Me!’. This was a fascinating and very entertaining talk, which was well attended. It was very good to see the mathematical sciences on such public display.

So there is plenty of interesting reading in the Newsletter, which I hope you will enjoy.

First published: 11 October 2017

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