Peter Taylor
Interim Director
Peter Taylor received a BSc(Hons) and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Adelaide in 1980 and 1987 respectively. In between, he spent time working for the Australian Public Service in Canberra. After periods at the Universities of Western Australia and Adelaide, he moved at the beginning of 2002 to the University of Melbourne. In January 2003, he took up a position as the inaugural Professor of Operations Research. He was Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics from 2005 until 2010.
Peter’s research interests lie in the fields of stochastic modelling and applied probability, with particular emphasis on applications in telecommunications, biological modelling, healthcare, economics and disaster management. Recently he has become interested in the interaction of stochastic modelling with optimisation and optimal control under conditions of uncertainty. He is regularly invited to present plenary papers at international conferences. He has also acted on organising and program committees for many conferences.
Peter is the Editor-in-Chief of the Applied Probability Trust journals Journal of Applied Probability and Advances in Applied Probability and was the Editor-in-Chief of Stochastic Models between 2002 and 2018. He is also a member of the editorial board of Queueing Systems. He served on the Awards Committee of the Applied Probability Section of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) from 2005-2007 and in 2016 was Co-Chair of the Committee for the Nicholson Prize, awarded for the best student paper in operations research.
From 2006 to 2008, Peter was Chair of the Australia and New Zealand Division of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ANZIAM), and from 2010 to 2012 he was the President of the Australian Mathematical Society. In 2013 he was awarded a Laureate Fellowship by the Australian Research Council, and in 2016 he became Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers(ACEMS). In 2017, he was awarded the Ren Potts Medal by the Australian Society for Operations Research and in 2018 the George Szekeres Medal by the Australian Mathematical Society and in 2019 the ANZIAM Medal by the Australian and New Zealand Division of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. All three medals are for career achievement. In 2023, he was elected to the Australian Academy of Science.