Homepage of Sophie Ambrose

This is the mathematical home-page of Doctor Sophie Ambrose, moved here since my account at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Western Australia is likely to expire soon. My Phd research was on:

Finding the proportion of elements of GL(n,q) whose order is divisible by a primitive prime divisor of q^n-1.
Matrix problems like finding the characteristic polynomial, LUP decomposition and rank profile.
Black box group recognition, specifically for the sporadic simple groups.

My supervisors were Cheryl Praeger, Alice Niemeyer, and Csaba Schneider.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my research, coursework, or anything else!

Past units I have tutored:

These links have a tendency to break at the end of every semester, but they should all be listed on the undergraduate info page.

Maths 131 Similar to 101, calculus and linear algebra.
3CC Codes and ciphers.
AA213 Second year linear algebra plus a little bit of group theory etc.

Commitments for semester 2, 2006:

Maths learning centre 1-4pm Thursdays.
If it's not busy I am happy to help with 3rd year pure maths units. (You can ask me about other types of 3rd year units, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to help!)

Links of use to Students:

Publications Online:

My honours thesis (PDF) A couple of people have wanted to look at it so here you are. Note that the characteristic polynomial algorithm was wrong, so I removed it. There's some stuff on that sort of thing in my Phd thesis.
Generalised Sifting in Black Box Groups A published paper.
My Phd thesis (PDF)
UWA maths thesis faq A discussion of some of the issues and questions that came up during my Phd.
A poster about my Phd for Open Day Originally powerpoint, which is why it looks little off.

Links related to my research:

Yes, I use GAP and MAGMA :)

MAGMA
GAP
MathSciNet (But don't underestimate the power of google)
Atlas of finite group presentations This is really useful for writing recognition programs.
A guide to Latex