April 9, 2025
Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie FRSN FAA of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences at the University of Wollongong and Emeritus Professor George Willis FRSN FAA of the School of Information and Physical Sciences at the University of Newcastle have been named as winners in the Academy of Science (AAS) Career Honorific Awards for 2025.
Professor Cressie was awarded the Hannan Medal, which is one of the Academy’s career-level honorific awards, recognises outstanding research in any of the fields of statistical science, pure mathematics, applied mathematics and computational mathematics and is made in one of those three areas in turn at two-yearly intervals. In 2025, the medal was awarded to Professor Cressie for his outstanding contributions to statistical science.
Professor Willis was awarded the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal, another of the Academy’s career-level honorific awards, recognises outstanding achievement by a scientist in Australia for research in mathematics or physics.
The Academy citation for Professor Noel Cressie notes that he is a world leader in statistical science for the analysis of spatial and space-time data, especially in environmental science. He has made pioneering, fundamental, ground-breaking, paradigm-shifting and highly influential contributions to theory, methodology and applications. Professor Cressie is a leading exponent of statistical methods in environmental science, especially for large-scale phenomena such as oceanic and atmospheric circulation and climate. By combining physical principles with stochastic models to capture uncertainties, he has developed a powerful methodology to investigate causal links in these complex global processes. He has overcome daunting challenges to make the methodology computationally feasible for large and complex datasets. Professor Cressie has played a key role in applications to global CO2 flux, regional climate, sea surface temperature, air pollution, disease mapping, biogeochemical cycles, soil carbon dynamics, movement of glaciers and river pollution. His recent work on climate model uncertainty may ultimately have a substantial impact on science and policy.
The Academy citation for Professor George Willis states that, beyond solving problems, Professor George Willis is a true creator of new mathematics. Through his invention of ‘the scale’ and its function, Professor Willis gave an entirely new insight into the unexpected structure and classification of totally disconnected locally compact groups, a previously intractable area. This novel approach, now known as ‘Willis Theory’, has broad implications for diverse fields of mathematics. Professor Willis’s research extends beyond theoretical elegance, leading to unexpected and pivotal real-world applications related to symmetric infinite networks. By describing how finite patterns might continue indefinitely, his work informs the growth and optimisation of real-world networks like computer systems and global social networks. In a lifetime of achievement, Professor Willis has ensured Australia is at the frontier of knowledge in pure mathematics. His ongoing contributions add to his already remarkable legacy of innovative academic research and dedicated education leadership in pure mathematics at the regional University of Newcastle in Australia.
The links above access the AAS citations for these two outstanding researchers together with a short video on their work and contributions to science.
The Council of the Royal Society of NSW warmly congratulates Fellows Noel Cressie and George Willis on this latest recognition of the career impact of their research.
