The Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowships aim to assist early career mathematicians to spend research time overseas, to present papers at National and International Conferences and to make and maintain international contacts . The Fellowships are funded annually by Walter and Lyn Bloom.

Applications for the Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowship should be emailed directly to the committee at bloom@austms.org.au by 3rd November in the year of application. Prospective applicants should follow the application procedures given in the Rules below.

Biography

Emeritus Professor Walter Bloom was born on 2 December 1948 in Auckland, NZ. He completed an honours degree in Mathematics at the University of Tasmania, a PhD in Pure Mathematics (Harmonic Analysis) at the Australian National University under the supervision of the late Professor Robert Edwards, and a DSc at the University of Tasmania. Walter was awarded a Fulbright Award in 1976/1977 (University of Washington, Seattle), and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship in 1987, 1991, 1998 (University of Tübingen, Germany) and in 1999 (University of Eichstätt, Germany), all in Mathematics, and in 2011, 2013, 2016 at the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Münzkabinet, Berlin) in Numismatics. Walter has published across a wide area, mainly in Mathematics and Numismatics, but also in Teaching, Architecture and Metal Analysis, and he has supervised PhD students in Mathematics, Philosophy and Numismatics. Walter has a major publication (jointly with the late Professor Herbert Heyer):
Harmonic analysis of probability measures on hypergroups, De Gruyter Studies in Mathematics, Volume 20, ISBN 3-11-012105-0. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin – New York, 601pp, 1995.

Walter is an Honorary Life Member and Fellow of the Australian Mathematical Society (Secretary 1980–1990) and has been a Member since 1971. He worked as an academic at the University of Tasmania (1974) and Murdoch University (1975–2011) and held many senior positions at Murdoch University including in the Staff Association/Union and is an Honorary Life Member of the National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU). Walter is also the Honorary Numismatist at the Western Australian Museum (since 1998) and has held/holds senior positions in Numismatics both in Australia and internationally. He won the Paul Simon Memorial Prize for service to Numismatics in Australia in 2007, and the Ray Jewell Silver Medal for service to the Numismatic Association of Australia and Numismatics in Australia in 2014.

Associate Professor Lyn Bloom was born on 13 July 1945 in Cairns, Queensland. She completed an Honours degree in Mathematics at the University of Queensland and followed this with an MSc and a PhD in Pure Mathematics (Harmonic Analysis) at the Australian National University, both under the supervision of the late Professor Robert Edwards. Over the course of her research career Lyn moved to the area of Geostatistics, carrying out research projects in the mining and fisheries industries and environmetrics. Throughout she maintained a research interest in the area of the use of Technology in Mathematics Education.

Lyn is a Fellow of the Australian Mathematical Society and has been a Member since 1967. She has worked as an academic at the Australian National University (1967–1974), the University of Tasmania (1974), Murdoch University (1975–1981) and Edith Cowan University (1982–2006). From 2007 to her retirement in 2012 she was the elected WA Division Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU) and is an Honorary Life Member of the NTEU. Lyn also spent six years as an elected academic staff representative on the Edith Cowan University Council.

Both Walter and Lyn place a high value on the opportunities they received to spend research time overseas and to present papers at National and International Conferences. They always considered the making and maintaining of international contacts to be an essential part of their academic positions and throughout their careers did this wherever possible, at times at considerable personal expense.

Lyn and Walter met in Canberra and married there on 3 November 1971, the anniversary date of this Travelling Fellowship. They spent 1974 in Hobart and moved to Perth at the beginning of 1975, being two of the four foundation staff members in Mathematics and Statistics at Murdoch University when it opened for students that year.

Rules for the Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowships

1. The Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowship is offered every year to researchers who have obtained their PhD in any area of mathematics from an Australian university.
2. The successful candidate will need to have a research project, in any area of mathematics, of at least a month’s duration in any overseas institution.
3. To be eligible to apply, a candidate must have qualified for their PhD within five years of the closing date and cannot have previously been awarded either the Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowship or the Alf van der Poorten Travelling Fellowship. Applicants must have been members of the Society for at least the twelve-month period immediately prior to the date of application (back-dating of membership to the previous year is not sufficient) and must be Australian citizens and resident in Australia.
4. At most one Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowship will be awarded each year unless no-one of sufficient merit is found, in which case no Fellowship shall be awarded and the funds not expended remain part of the Fellowship pool.
5. The Fellowship Committee of the Society will make recommendations to the President of the Society on the award of the Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowship.
6. Applications for the Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowship should include the completed application form detailing a travel and research plan and budget (at most one page), a budget justification, letters of support from all institutions being visited, a full CV and a letter from the awarding institution confirming when the applicant qualified for the award of their PhD. Applications should be sent to bloom@austms.org.au by 3rd November in the year of the award.
7. The applicant should arrange for two letters of support from experts in the field to be sent directly to the committee care of bloom@austms.org.au. These letters should comment on the track record of the applicant and on the merits of the Fellowship application. One of these letters can be a letter of support from a host institution.
8. The selection committee will recommend the amount to be granted, to a maximum of $5,000 in each of the first five years (and subsequently indexed), to a successful applicant, taking account of the proposed research and travel activities, and the research track record of the applicant relative to opportunity.
9. The Selection Committee reserves the right to consult with appropriate assessors.
10. In applying for a Walter and Lyn Bloom Travelling Fellowship each candidate agrees if successful for a citation and photograph to be published on the Society’s website and in a Society journal, and agrees to submit a report within two months of the conclusion of the Fellowship for publication on the Society’s website.