People might think that a mathematician sits at a desk and proves theorems all day,
but what we're actually doing is making the world run more efficiently.
I'm Evan Shellshear and I work as the head of analytics at Biarri.
I'm an industry fellow of the Business School at The University of Queensland.
I have the coolest job because it's intellectually challenging and I'm
solving big and important problems that are having a big impact on the world.
Mathematics and STEM skills are a fantastic way to see the world.
Mathematics is a common language that doesn't change country to country. The rules are the same,
wherever you go. Whether you land in Africa, Asia or South America,
those mathematical skills will be as valid there as they were in Australia.
My professional background began in Sweden where I worked programming robots to build cars.
My role when I was in Sweden was to formulate mathematical models of complex
manufacturing processes in the automotive industry.
Then I came back to Australia and worked in data and analytics and digital start ups.
The word Biarri comes from an Aboriginal language meaning to hunt, or to look for.
That's the core concept of what we do here - we hunt and look for the
best solutions for companies that we work with.
We try and apply advanced mathematical techniques to help people make the best possible decisions,
to best utilise the world's resources and
to make sure we're doing the best possible thing we can right now.
An important part of our job is to make sure we understand the challenge we're facing correctly.
To do this we have to make sure we ask the right questions,
understand the edge cases of the problem and much more.
The way that we successfully do this is using mathematical and design thinking processes.
The steps to doing this usually follow an iterative process and begin by defining the
problem, translating the problem, analysing it and then interpreting the results.
Let's look at each of them in detail. The first step is to define the question of interest,
whether it's social, environmental or economical. We need to identify the real
world problem and we need to understand it using design thinking tools. What is the category of
problem we're trying to solve? Are we trying to simulate, predict or optimise? Then we need to
identify the variables - which variable's important and what is the role they play?
Next we need to translate that into a mathematical model
and understand the governing principles that guide the relationships between the variables.
Different problems require different mathematical techniques to solve them. For example,
if I'm trying to understand the price of fuel tomorrow, I'll use regression.
If I want to know the most efficient way to allocate my money, I'll use linear programming.
Depending on the complexity of the model, we may have to simplify it too.
We then formulate that model using a theoretical mathematical approach and write it down.
Once we've formulated the mathematical problem
we then need to analyse it and select the appropriate mathematical tools to solve it.
Are we predicting or optimising? Do we have a hypothesis or are we simulating a system?
We then solve that mathematical problem by
implementing it in code and using mathematical engines.
Once we've done that we start validating the solution.
Finally we now need to present the results to the stakeholders - the people who really
wanted to know the outcomes and draw the appropriate conclusions.
The challenge here is to present that information in a way that the end user can understand it,
no matter whether they're sitting on the other side of an internet connection
or in front of you, and we use visual tools to make that
easily understandable, so that you can use those results in the best possible way.
It's inspiring to see the impact of the work we do and help people solve their problems.
Something that still fascinates me is how do we make our models richer,
and by doing so, bringing more of the human behavior that's typically abstracted away.
We need people from all sorts of backgrounds to join us to solve all these difficult and important
problems. That multi-disciplinary mindset requires the ability to be
open to all sorts of other approaches to solving problems to be able to collaborate with people
and not just focus on the technical and quantitative side of things, so the numbers,
but also to focus on the people and the other skills that revolve around that solution.
One of the key aspects of good mathematics is good communication, and going out and communicating the
results of an important piece of mathematics to the community, to help them make better decisions.
So one of the fun parts of my job is going on stage and educating people about what
maths really can do and how it truly leads to some of the coolest jobs out there.
Maths is important for all STEM careers but sometimes
it can be difficult to understand which subjects you should study.
That's why I worked with UQ to create a career pathways document that, for the first time,
links careers with courses of study in a systematic
and comprehensive fashion. It's the first time it's been done in the world.
To create this document we needed to apply mathematical and design thinking processes.
While we did that we kept our eye on the prize,
which is which areas of maths are hot right now? And where are the applications
occurring that you're going to need to study to get a career in mathematics?
At the moment, applications of mathematics to
things like artificial intelligence and predicting the future are really popular.
Mathematics helps us to think clearly about the world's toughest problems,
to break them down and to solve them logically, so my hope for the future
is that more people choose to study and work in STEM fields.
We really need more people solving the world's most important problems now.
To do this kind of work, start to learn how to code.
You can start with simple programs that are drag and drop like Scratch
and then you can move on to more complex programming languages like Python.
These will set you up for a career in STEM by teaching
you how to think methodically and algorithmically.
The ultimate question for me is how do we best leverage the
world's capabilities to solve difficult problems that are really important?
I'm really interested in how I can bring the right people,
the right skills to solve these challenges.