mathematics

Lesley Ward

Lesley Ward is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lesley Ward rather than just read about it. In short: Lesley Ann Ward is an Australian mathematician specializing in harmonic analysis, complex analysis, and industrial applications of mathematics. She is a professor in the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences of the University of South Australia, director of the Mathematics Clinic at the university, and former chair of the Women in Mathematics Group of the Australian Mathematical Society.

Key takeaways

Lesley Ward belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lesley Ward to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lesley Ward from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lesley Ann Ward is an Australian mathematician specializing in harmonic analysis, complex analysis, and industrial applications of mathematics. She is a professor in the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences of the University of South Australia, director of the Mathematics Clinic at the university, and former chair of the Women in Mathematics Group of the Australian Mathematical Society.

Education and career Ward earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics with first class honours from Australian National University (ANU) in 1987; at ANU, she served as president of the Students' Association for 1984–1985. She went to Yale University for her graduate studies, also visiting the Mittag-Leffler Institute as a student, and completed her doctorate at Yale in 1994. Her dissertation, Fuchsian Groups, Quasiconformal Groups, and Conical Limit Sets, was supervised by Peter Jones. She worked as a G. C. Evans Instructor at Rice University from 1994 to 1997, overlapping with a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in 1995. She then joined the Harvey Mudd College mathematics faculty, and in 2006 moved to the University of South Australia.

Selected publications With Cristina Pereyra, Ward is the author of Harmonic Analysis: from Fourier to Wavelets (Student Mathematical Library 63, American Mathematical Society, 2012). She has also published highly cited work on the HITS algorithm for using link structure to rate web pages.

Recognition Ward won the Henry L. Alder Award of the Mathematical Association of America] in 2006 for distinguished teaching as a beginning undergraduate teacher. She was included in the 2019 class of fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics "for her enduring commitment to supporting women in the mathematical sciences; for her mentoring in research; for her work on inclusivity; and for her leadership of the Women in Mathematics Special Interest Group in Australia".

References

External links Lesley Ward publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lesley Ward

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lesley Ward claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lesley Ward before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lesley Ward ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lesley Ward

In research: Lesley Ward appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lesley Ward in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lesley Ward is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic staff of the University of South Australia, Australian National University alumni, Australian mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lesley Ward outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lesley Ward in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lesley Ward means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lesley Ward out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lesley Ward in simple terms?

Why does Lesley Ward matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lesley Ward?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lesley Ward.