Sid and I welcome you to the first issue of the Gazette for 2016.

摘要

Last time, we congratulated Peter Hall on his election to the Academy of Social Sciences; this time we mourn his passing. It is difficult to do justice to his achievements, and to the gap now left in the Australian mathematical and statistical landscape. In addition to his own stellar research output, Peter contributed in many ways to the health of the mathematical sciences in Australia. He played a key role in the establishment of AMSI (as first chair of its Scientific Advisory Committee), and more recently, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers at the University of Melbourne. He was President of the Australian Mathematical Society from 2006 to 2008; some of his reports in the Gazette from this period still make interesting reading today. At the Australian Academy of Science, he served at different times as chair of the National Committee for Mathematical Sciences, Secretary for Physical Sciences, and chair of the Steering Committee for the NCMS's Decadal Plan. (The Decadal Plan has recently been released www.science.org.au/mathematics-plan-2016-25; we encourage everyone to have a look at it.) Matt Wand tells more about the story of Peter's life in an obituary in this issue.