Teacher: Christian Thomas, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and current course director for Mathematics.
Groundwork: Following the completion of his PhD at Cardiff University, Christian (pictured above) undertook postdoctoral research associate roles at Cardiff University (2007-2008), the University of Western Australia (2008-2011) and Imperial College London (2011-2017). In 2013, he undertook a role as an aerodynamic researcher at Airbus.
Gold star: Christian won the Vice-Chancellor’s Award in 2022 for being an outstanding educator in first-year unit MATH1010, second-year unit MATH2110 and third-year unit MATH3905.
How Christian’s students describe him: Enthusiastic, insightful and empowering.
What Christian says:
My goal as a teacher is to change the perception of students who arrive at university with a dislike for maths or who believe they are not very good at it. As a fundamental subject for STEM research, which also develops crucial employability skills, I love the challenge of transforming the learning experience by using short videos and engaging resources.
I bring a lot of enthusiasm to the classroom. I want to bring out the best in my students by relating the material to real-world applications, particularly within my own field of research in fluid dynamics.
I joined Macquarie University in January 2020, just before the world went bonkers. Prior to this, I was a lecturer at Monash University, Melbourne. Prior to that I undertook postdoctoral roles at Imperial College London, University of Western Australia and Cardiff University. I grew up in the valleys of South Wales.
Students praise my ability to create engaging learning experiences through short videos and interactive live lectures, in which I encourage active participation. I fostered an inclusive learning space for both on-campus and online students, enabling both cohorts to participate in discussions and problem solving. I am empathetic to students’ learning, and provide support, guidance and opportunities for interaction.
My students tell me I'm a great motivator. They say I am someone who encourages active participation, makes maths fun, and am friendly, engaging and approachable. Other feedback includes being told I’m helpful, patient and supportive.
Maths allows us to make sense of the world around us. I teach three units: a first-year unit that introduces fundamental maths methods; a second-year unit that develops techniques for modelling populations and infectious diseases (and fun zombie-apocalypse scenarios); and a third-year unit on solving complex problems computationally.
I aim to set my students up for success by designing my units to develop fundamental employment skills.
During live lectures, I encourage students to volunteer problems that we solve together as a collaborative exercise. Both face-to-face and online students find this to be a fun and engaging exercise.
As an applied mathematician I love to model the world around us. As an educator, I take great pleasure in demonstrating to students how this is achieved.
I set my students up for success by designing my units to develop fundamental employment skills. I teach them problem-solving and communication skills and the ability to apply mathematics to real-world problems. The thing I love most about teaching is when a student says they’ve found the lecture fun and have confidence in their own maths abilities.
My superpower is simplifying complex mathematics into easy-to-understand steps. The most rewarding part of my role at Macquarie University is being able to design courses that teach the next generation of scientists and engineers.
I would like my students to view me as … friendly, supportive, encouraging and a motivator.
The perfect student is … someone who has a go, irrespective of ability, and gets involved in class discussions by asking questions and suggesting problems and solutions.
