Kate Helmstedt

Kate Helmstedt

@katehelmstedt.bsky.social

Maths, models, and decision science for biodiversity conservation. Professor of mathematics. Lead QUT Applied Mathematical Ecology Group, CI in @arcsaef.bsky.social

2,862 Followers 932 Following 43 Posts Joined Aug 2023
5 months ago
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Developing new technologies to protect ecosystems: Planning with adaptive management | PNAS Technology development is an essential investment for policymakers to address contemporary global crises, including climate change, biodiversity lo...

How long should we be investing in technology development for ecosystem conservation? When should we divert our funding to other conservation actions? We try to answer these questions with POMDPs: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
@katehelmstedt.bsky.social @matthew-p-adams.bsky.social and Iadine Chades.

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7 months ago
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Embedding Sustainability in Undergraduate Mathematics with Actionable Case Studies There is a growing need to integrate sustainability into tertiary mathematics education given the urgency of addressing global environmental challenges. This paper presents four case studies from Aust...

Ooh arXiv paper from @matthholden.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social about embedding sustainability in undergraduate maths with case studies 👀 Looks very actionable!

arxiv.org/abs/2508.07594

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7 months ago
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Mathematical Ecology and Environmental Decision Science School of Mathematics and Physics Full-time, fixed-term position for up to 2 years and 9 months with the possibility up to 3 years, depending on funding availability. Base salary will be in the range ...

Job alert: 2.75 -3 yr postdoc in Mathematical ecology/epidemiology or Decision Sci at the University of Queensland on the value of information for decisions with @hugepossum.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social Katriona Shea & myself #MathSky 🌍 uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/uqcareers/jo... please share

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8 months ago
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What information is most useful to make better decisions based on a model? @katehelmstedt.bsky.social explains how Value of Information can inform which marine invasive species should be monitored in Antarctica AND which uncertainties in our ecosystem models should we be resolving? #ICCB2025

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9 months ago
Details | City St George's, University of London Details of job vacancy at City St George's,, University of London

🚨 Datavis Job Alert! 🚨

Permanent Senior Lectureship in Data Visualization.

Exciting opportunity to join us @ giCentre, London to teach & research #datavis including our £11m Centre for Doctoral Training in Visualization.

Feel free to DM for informal chat.

www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/about/jobs/a...

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10 months ago

Strength to all trans women today. The bigots are out in force, but always remember their hate says everything about them not you. Trans women are women, and a bigot is always a bigot.

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11 months ago
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Does US science have a future in Antarctica? Trump cuts threaten to cancel fieldwork and more Funding for the National Science Foundation, which finances research at US bases on the icy continent, has already been reduced, and the agency faces steeper cuts soon.

The US has three bases in Antarctica. Besides the important science done there, they're a proxy for geopolitical power. China just built its fifth base in Antarctica, so if the US pulls back, guess who will take over?

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11 months ago
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A player who has shared the most votes with a jury member is ~37% more likely to get their vote. And more votes, more likely. At this stage, Kaelan has the highest jury favorability, and Myles is critically low.

This is a strong indicator, but not deterministic. A few more things 🧵 1/

#SurvivorAU

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11 months ago

So little time to make this call, too. Speed aura reading

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11 months ago
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International Women in Mathematics Day 2025

We're hosting an early International Women in Maths Day event in Brisbane next Monday - come hang out and eat lunch. All genders welcome, but you gotta like maths and women killing it. Research talks from women, professional development discussions, free food smp.uq.edu.au/event/sessio....

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11 months ago

The total Australian Research Council budget is $1bn.

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11 months ago
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I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky

I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

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11 months ago
Postdoctoral fellowships in complex systems We're looking for three postdoctoral fellows to join our newly created Modelling for Impact Hub.

Job alert: 3 Aotearoa New Zealand Postdoctoral fellowships in complex systems www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/2025/03/07/p...

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11 months ago
A pigeon sitting beside its simple nest—just a few twigs, nothing fancy, but it works. One egg rests inside, soon the city will welcome another little pigeon to its flock.

In the final stretch of my PhD thesis on nests, I keep thinking about this pigeon's masterpiece. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just done. Let’s do this! 🐦🪶

#PhD #PhDsky 🧪

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1 year ago

The line is a mountain and the bear represents a cave tunnelling through the data to the deeply hidden truth, obviously

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1 year ago
‘This is a fluid situation’, premier says

He’s not wrong #brisbane

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1 year ago

We introduce a method to quantify how extreme events affect ecosystem function and services. Paper out today in @natureecoevo.bsky.social - very fitting on a day that Cyclone Alfred is looming off the coast of my city!

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1 year ago
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Quantifying disturbance effects on ecosystem services in a changing climate - Nature Ecology & Evolution A generalizable, functional-trait-based approach for quantifying the effects of disturbances to ecosystem services and economic outcomes, including under climate change, highlights the need for incorp...

Brief interruption in my/our doom scrolling/posting to share a paper I'm really proud of that has taken almost a decade with the very patient @exconomist.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social P. Reich, S. Polasky & K. Boersma
www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/n

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1 year ago
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Legendary ABC chief election analyst Antony Green to step down The ABC's 2025 federal election coverage will be the last to feature Antony Green AO in an on-air role, with the chief election analyst stepping down after more than 30 years.

For a long time I've joked that Antony Green is immortal and will never retire.

He is sharp, fast, funny, and it has been such a privilege to have a front row seat to the master at work for so long.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02...

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1 year ago

This week the ARC should release Expressions of Interest outcomes for Discovery Projects.

Should be Wed–Fri. They’re not public, so my bot cannot track them.

The ARC should email applicants, and maybe tweet(?), to say outcomes are available in RMS.

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1 year ago

Yay!! Congrats Maria!

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1 year ago

Yess this conference in Nepal is going to be awesome. Maths, environment, natural resources, lots of biodiversity conservation focus. Can’t wait

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1 year ago
Luz on the lectern standing next to the title slide of her talk.

Another one for important work on climate change and its effects (presumably on the Great Barrier Reef), Luz V. Pascal from Queensland University of Technology presents: "When does non-stationarity matter for threatened ecosystems?"

#ANZIAM2025
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1 year ago

I loved this construction! I’ll definitely be using it next time I teach queuing theory

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1 year ago

Congratulations @kleshnina.bsky.social!! The award every academic in the room was vying for. The students were right - her talk on game theory, resilience, and inequality was impressive. Read the paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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1 year ago
Grace is standing on the podium looking at the introductory slide of her talk. The slide is using a very colourful palette of pink-purple combined with many photos of nature and animals.

Next for Tuesday's #ANZIAM2025 is Grace Robinson from Queensland University of Technology: "Balancing competing priorities: optimising land usage allocation"

Mmm, practical optimisation! The type of optimisation I like!

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1 year ago

Impossible to implement. Much easier for us all to have two bluesky apps and find out our futures publicly from a bot

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1 year ago

We can all go back to knowing ARC grant outcomes within 17 seconds of them being posted, thank god

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1 year ago

Petition for more thirst traps in ANZIAM plenaries

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1 year ago

Yep, when you hear that mining is huge, remember they mean the profits are huge...

The Hospitality industry pays more wages to Australians than does mining.

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