Professor Jennifer Flegg awarded the EO Tuck Medal
University of Melbourne Professor Jennifer Flegg has received the Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS) EO Tuck Medal in recognition of her outstanding research and distinguished service to the field of Applied Mathematics.
In the fifteen years since her PhD, less 1.5 years of career interruption, Jennifer Flegg has produced a large volume highly cited research with dramatic global impact. Her 2014 paper on the Spread of Artemisinin Resistance in Plasmodium Falciparum Malaria, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has been cited more than 2500 times and, overall, her work has attracted more than 6000 citations. The World Health Organisation has used her models for the resistance to drugs used to treat Malaria to update its policies on where and when certain drugs should be used. She has accumulated a Google Scholar h-index of 30.
Jennifer currently holds an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, has previously held a DECRA and has won multiple competitive grants from ARC and NHMRC. She is the University of Melbourne Node Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Mathematical Analysis of Cellular Systems (2023|2029).
Jennifer's previous research awards include the ANZIAM JH Michell Medal, the Australian Academy of Science Christopher Heyde Medal and the Society for Mathematical Biology Leah Edelstein-Keshet Prize for exceptional contributions to mathematical biology and exhibiting a continuously high level of scientific endeavour and leadership.
She has been a plenary speaker at ANZIAM, AustMS, Computational Techniques and Applications Conference (CTAC), Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).
Professor Flegg has held editorial positions with the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, PLOS Computational Biology and Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. She was Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly SMB Newsletter from 2017-2019 and was elected to the Board of Directors for the SMB (2024|2028).
Jennifer has been heavily involved in the Women in Mathematics Special Interest Group (WIMSIG) and has contributed to numerous mentoring programs in mathematics including the WIMSIG mentoring program, STEM Professionals in Schools (since 2015), ChooseMaths (2017-19) and Sisters in Science (2017- 18).
With these accomplishments as a researcher, leader and mentor, Jennifer Flegg is a worthy recipient of the EO Tuck Medal for 2025.