Timothy Schaerf

Dr Schaerf studied Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney from 1997 to 1998 before switching to a Bachelor of Science degree, primarily to pursue his interest in higher level applied mathematics. He completed his BSc with honours in applied mathematics (in 2000), and then his PhD (in late 2006) under the supervision of Associate Professor Charlie Macaskill, examining the accuracy of a numerical method (the Contour-Advective Semi-Lagrangian method) for simulating geophysical fluid motions, such as atmospheric vortices and subsurface oceanic eddies. From 2009 to 2012, Dr Schaerf worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory (bee lab) at the University of Sydney, under the supervision of Professors Madeleine Beekman and Mary Myerscough, and studied the processes that honey bees use to select their nest-sites. He then continued work as a postdoctoral researcher from 2013 to 2015 with Professor Ashley Ward in the Animal Behaviour Lab at the University of Sydney, with his work focussed on the collective behaviour of animals, and in particular how groups of animals coordinate collective movements. Dr Schaerf moved to UNE in late 2015 to take up a position as a lecturer in applied mathematics, and he has since been promoted to senior lecturer (effective from January 2019), and convenor for the disciplines of mathematics and statistics (effective from June 2022). Dr Schaerf has ongoing research interests in the modelling and analysis of collective animal motion, honey bee nest-site selection, and more broadly the modelling and analysis of biological processes.