Mathematical Education on Merseyside

MEM Senior Challenge Prize Evening
2025-05-07 19:00 - 21:00 UTC
Date: 07 May, 2025
Time: 19:00
Presenter: Kerrie Evans
Title: MEM Senior Challenge Prize Evening
Audience: MEM Senior Challenge Prize winners and families
Venue: University of Liverpool, Central Teaching Laboratory Building (CTL), L69 7ZL
Contact: Chris Marchant

The MEM Senior Challenge Prize Evening will take place on Wednesday 07 May 2025 from 7:00PM to 9:00PM

LivMS Open Challenge Prize Evening
2025-05-07 19:00 - 21:00
Date: 07 May, 2025
Time: 19:00 – 2100
Presenter: Colin Wright
Title: Open Challenge Prize Evening 2025
Audience: Participants in Open Challenge and their teachers
Venue: Gather.town
Contact: Colin Wright

This is an online event for Open Challenge entrants and their teachers.
The event will be held on Gather.town and registration is necessary via Ticket Source.
The link for this is
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/booking/t-vvqqjne
Registration will close at 23:59 on 6 May
A link for joining the event and a password will be sent out by email by 13:00 on 7 May.
Once you have joined the event on 7 May, you can have fun navigating a virtual venue, register your attendance, socialise, enjoy a presentation of the solutions and prizes and challenge yourself with a variety of mathematical puzzles and mazes.
Provisional timetable

19:00 Doors open
19:20 Talk on behalf of our sponsors (Worshipful Company of Actuaries)
19:25 Presentation of sample solutions by Tony Carter
19:35 Presentation of prizes by Rachel Bearon (President, Liverpool Mathematical Society)
19:45 Puzzles and mazes
20:55 Evening closes.

Open Challenge ’25 is sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Actuaries and is also supported by W. H. Smith Promotions Ltd.

http://www.whsmith.co.uk

MEM Challenge Prize Evening
2025-05-13 19:00 - 21:00
Date: 13 May, 2025
Time: 19:00
Presenter: Kerrie Evans
Title: MEM Challenge Prize Evening
Audience: MEM Challenge Prize winners and families
Venue: University of Liverpool, Central Teaching Laboratory Building (CTL), L69 7ZL
Contact: Chris Marchant

The MEM Challenge Prize Evening will take place on Wednesday 14 May 2024 from 7:00PM to 9:00PM

MEM Saturday Masterclass 1 of 4
2025-10-18 09:30 - 14:30 | ULMaS, Liverpool
Masterclass: 1 of 4
Date: Saturday 18th October 2025
Time: 0930 to 1430
Venue: Liverpool Universiy Maths School (ULMaS)

MEM Saturday Masterclass 2 of 4
2025-11-08 09:30 - 14:30 | Ridgeway High School, Noctorum Avenue, Prenton, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH43 9EB
Masterclass: 2 of 4
Date: Saturday 8th November 2025
Time: 0930 to 1430
Venue: Ridgeway High School, Wirral

MEM Saturday Masterclass 3 of 4
2025-11-22 09:30 - 14:30 | HOPE, Eden Building, Taggart Avenue, Liverpool, L16 9JD
Masterclass: 3 of 4
Date: Saturday 22nd November 2025
Time: 0930 to 1430
Venue: Liverpool Hope University

MEM Saturday Masterclass 4 of 4
2025-12-06 09:30 - 14:30 | UoL Maths Building, Peach Street, Liverpool, L69 7BX
Masterclass: 4 of 4
Date: Saturday 6th December 2025
Time: 0930 to 1430
Venue: University of Liverpool

LivMS Popular Lecture: Checking the Calculations - How do engineers trust their designs?
2026-02-04 17:00 - 18:00
Date: 04 Feb, 2026
Time: 17:00
Presenter: Dr Ksenija Dvurecenska
Title: Checking the Calculations: How Do Engineers Trust Their Designs?
Audience: Year 11 upwards
Venue: University of Liverpool campus (room TBC)
Contact: Michael Jones
Registration: Via Eventbrite

Engineers are constantly developing new designs and technologies for a safer and more sustainable future. With our growing understanding of the world and computational capabilities, computer simulations have transformed how we study engineering systems and environment around us. A simulation uses maths to show how an engineering system or a scientific phenomenon works in real life. It helps scientists and engineers understand and test what might happen under different circumstances. For example, cars driving over a bridge or how an airplane behaves during a storm. Computer simulations are enabling more prototypes to be explored and more tests to be performed virtually at a fraction of the time and cost.
It’s important to show how much we can trust a simulation and how good or bad its results are. This can be achieved through a validation process, which involves comparing simulation results with physical measurements. We analyse similarities and differences by using statistical methods and conclude how good or bad the simulation is based on the data. It can help decision-makers to have confidence when considering simulation results and help to create safer, stronger, and more environmentally friendly designs for the future.
About the speaker
Dr Ksenija Dvurecenska is a lecturer in the School of Engineering at the University of Liverpool. She won the Chief Scientist’s Award (National Nuclear Laboratory) in 2021.
Her research focuses on developing validation methodologies to build confidence in predictions of computational models. She studies image decomposition (or orthogonal decomposition) techniques and statistical methods to compare outcomes from simulations, for example displacement fields, with full-field measurements. These techniques are applicable to a variety of disciplines and sectors where data can be represented as a map; currently, she is concentrating on applications in aerospace and nuclear engineering.
The challenges she is addressing are the standardisation of the validation methods, effective use of the measured data in the validation process and interpretation of the validation outcomes to support decisions based on the predictions of the computational models.

LivMS Presidential Lecture: Singularities - When Smooth things go Sharp
2026-03-11 17:00
Date: 11 Mar, 2026
Time: 17:00
Presenter: Dr Graham Reeve
Title: Presidential Lecture: Singularities: When Smooth Things Go Sharp
Audience: Year 11 upwards
Venue: University of Liverpool campus (room TBC)
Contact: Michael Jones
Registration: Via Eventbrite
This lecture is face-to-face on the University of Liverpool’s campus, exact venue TBC. It is suitable for anyone aged 16 or over with an interest in mathematics. Please book one ticket for each person attending. There will not be a live stream or a recording.
From the crease in a folded piece of paper to the tip of a cone, singularities are places where smooth shapes suddenly turn sharp, crumpled, or irregular. In this talk we’ll explore how mathematicians study these fascinating phenomena. Using illuminating examples like the cusp of a curve or the pinch of a surface, we’ll uncover how mathematicians reveal the hidden patterns behind singularities in places as varied as optics, astrophysics, and robotics.
About the speaker
Dr Graham Reeve gained his PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2012, after which he went on to do postdoctoral research at Universidade de Sao Paulo. He is now a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Liverpool Hope University, where he has taught since 2017.
Graham is the 2025-26 President of the Liverpool Mathematical Society and this is his Presidential Lecture.
