A message from MACSYS Director Trevor Lithgow:

Beyond our exciting research-based endeavours, MACSYS has an over-arching ambition to make a difference in attracting, training and developing people through our maths-meets-biology agenda. In any Centre of Excellence, the enduring legacy will be the people whose careers have benefitted from their experience in the Centre.

This sort of grand ambition can only be achieved through partnerships and, for MACSYS, one of our major strategic partners is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance, ATSIMA. I had the privilege of representing MACSYS at the ATSIMA2025 Conference on Bruny Island at the beginning of the month. It was an extraordinary event, that was both deeply moving and hugely important for some new network connections that we will develop in the coming months.

Why does this matter? There is a practical imperative in this work, because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are so under-represented in our university courses and our research teams. The MACSYS Equity, People, and Culture Committee (EPCC) has set as a joint priority, actions that address this inequity, as well as the gender inequity in our discipline areas. Many of the programs that we can enact can be valuable in both actions; in the MACSYS vision for maths-meets-biology to demonstrate how mathematics matters in the real world, and for our insistence that MACSYS be a safe place for people to be creative, different, and accepted for who they are.

There is also a research imperative in this work, because MACSYS has set itself several goals all of which sit at the frontiers of what is currently possible in research: both in maths and in biology. Working at the frontier of science, and indeed crashing through it, can only succeed when different voices and different experiences come together to determine what to try and how hard to try it. Far from being a philosophy, these are simply hard and proven facts. As a Centre, we can be proud of our actions in this area by the many MACSYS people who are working to attract, train and develop people in the framework of our maths-meets-biology agenda, and to deliver on our bold research ambitions.

There’s nothing quite like the energy of in-person collaboration. Last week, MACSYS researchers specialising in mathematical modelling came together for a dynamic two-day workshop at UNSW Sydney focused on exploring new collaborative opportunities. The goal? To spark fresh ideas and approaches for modelling membrane structure, function, and metabolism.

We were also joined by several of our cell biologists, whose insights added valuable depth and perspective to the discussions. It was inspiring to see cross-disciplinary working groups come together, and we’re excited to follow their progress as they continue developing innovative approaches and building bridges across fields.

MACSYS is thrilled to welcome Beth Wilson and Matt Coffey to our Professional Staff team.

Beth is our new Centre Stakeholder Engagement Officer. Beth joins us from the Transdisciplinary School at UTS in Sydney, where she led as the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Partnerships Manager. Her background in transdisciplinary collaboration makes her a perfect fit for MACSYS, where we bring together researchers from multiple universities and diverse disciplines.

Matt is our new Indigenous Outreach & Education Coordinator. Matt is a proud Wiradjuri man and educator who brings experience in designing and delivering inspiring STEM education programs for secondary school students. He most recently worked at WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) and DeadlyScience in managing the WEHI DeadlyScience Pathways Program.

Dr. Heejung Shim is taking on a new role as the Bioinformatics Lead at the Snow Vision Accelerator (SVA), University of Sydney. In this position, she will lead the bioinformatics strategy to support multi-omics data integration for drug discovery. She will remain actively involved in MACSYS and will explore opportunities to build connections between SVA and MACSYS. MACSYS wishes Heejung all the best in this next step of her career.