Citation for Elliot Carr

 

The JH Michell Medal, named in honour of John Henry Michell, is awarded annually by ANZIAM to an outstanding new researcher who has undertaken distinguished research in applied and/or industrial mathematics, where a significant proportion of the research has been carried out in Australia and/or New Zealand. There have been 20 winners of the JH Michell Medal, dating back to 1999.

The JH Michell Medal Committee for 2022 recommends that the JH Michell Medal be awarded to Dr Elliot Carr (Queensland University of Technology).

 

 

Dr Elliot Carr receiving the JH Michell Medal at the 2022 ANZIAM conference online.

 

 

Elliot received his mathematical education from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) completing a Bachelor of Mathematics (Honours) in 2008 and a PhD in Applied and Computational Mathematics in 2012. During his studies, Elliot received a total of 14 awards, prizes and scholarships, highlighted by a University Medal in 2008 (awarded to the top 0.5% of 2008 QUT graduates) and a University Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award in 2012 (awarded to the top 5% of 2012 QUT PhD theses). Elliot has demonstrated an outstanding profile of research following his student days, including work produced at L’Ecole Centrale in Paris, and Imperial College London before returning to Queensland University of Technology in 2015.

Elliot has a strong publication record comprising 38 published journal articles, which cover an impressive number of fields and applications. These include 6 sole-author papers, 19 first-author papers with co-authors, 6 student-led co-authored papers and 7 collaborator-led co-authored papers. The papers led by students and non-mathematical collaborators, demonstrate his leadership and the breadth of his research. Elliot’s publications appear in internationally-prestigious journals with 34 of his 38 papers published in Q1 Journals.

Elliot’s research focusses on developing and applying mathematical/computational models, techniques and algorithms to simulate, solve and analyse physical problems, particularly those governed by partial differential equations. He has made several important contributions to the study of diffusion phenomena in heterogeneous media, multi-scale modelling of transport phenomena and solution methods for partial differential equations. These contributions include (i) new analytical solutions of diffusive transport problems on heterogeneous and irregular domains (ii) new insights into the time required for diffusion processes to reach steady state (iii) new formulas for calculating the thermal diffusivity of solid materials from experimental data (iv) new homogenization approaches for stochastic and continuum diffusion in heterogeneous media (v) new multi-scale computational models for nonlinear transport in heterogeneous media and (vi) new numerical methods for solving partial differential equations.

Elliot’s work has been cited broadly receiving citations from 360 unique authors (across 41 distinct countries). The uptake of Elliot’s research by other disciplines also attests to its broad impact. For example, new computational and analytical techniques Elliot has developed have since been applied by other researchers to (i) characterise antibody penetration in cartilage tissue for understanding treatments of arthritis (ii) calculate key factors that affect the long-term durability of building materials and (iii) simulate drug release from nanospheres. This is reflected in Elliot’s successful research funding including an ARC DECRA fellowship ($317K total funding) between 2015 and 2018. He has also attracted research funding through collaboration with industry and government partners as part of large interdisciplinary teams working on timber processing projects ($170K total funding).

Elliot has contributed more widely than publications and funding, and has supervised multiple PhD, Masters and Honours students who have gone on both to publish with Elliot and also to continue to work in research. He has also been an active part of the ANZIAM community since returning to Australia in 2015. In addition to presenting his research at the past seven ANZIAM conferences (2015–2021), Elliot has been a TM Cherry Prize Committee member (2021 ANZIAM Conference) and a plenary talk chair (2020 ANZIAM Conference). During Elliot’s career, he has also supported the ANZIAM journal, publishing two papers in the journal and reviewing submissions for the journal on many occasions.