Staff profile

Qualifications

• BSc(Hons)(Tas), PhD(NE).

Teaching areas

• Over the years I have taught subjects in a variety of areas, including calculus and precalculus, discrete mathematics, complex analysis, numerical methods, operations research and introductory statistics. In 2008 my main teaching commitments were in the units Calculus A (MAT1CA), Discrete Mathematics (MAT1DIS) and Complex Analysis (MAT3CA).

Supervision

• I have supervised 1 successful PhD candidate in Approximation Theory.

Research interests

• My principal research interests are in Approximation Theory, particularly polynomial and weighted polynomial interpolation. The main emphasis of my work has been on Lagrange interpolation and its generalization to higher orders (the Hermite-Fejér processes), based on special node systems (such as equally-spaced points and the zeros of Chebyshev polynomials). A particular focus has been the determination of precise estimates for so-called Lebesgue constants (norms of the interpolation operators).

Recent publications and presentations

• W. L. Champion, T. M. Mills and Simon J. Smith, Lost in space, Math. Sci. 32
  (2007), 88–96.

• Simon J. Smith, Lebesgue constants in polynomial interpolation, Ann. Math. Inform. 33 (2006), 109–123.

• Simon J. Smith, On a conjecture for weighted interpolation using Chebyshev polynomials of the third and fourth kinds, Carpathian J. Math. 22 (2006), 147–151.

• Simon J. Smith, On the projection norm for a weighted interpolation using Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind, Math. Pannon. 16 (2005) 95–103.

• Simon J. Smith, The Lebesgue function for Lagrange interpolation on the augmented Chebyshev nodes, Publ. Math. Debrecen 66 (2005), 25–39.