Vivien Kirk

Vivien Kirk is a New Zealand mathematician who studies dynamical systems. She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Auckland, where she also serves as associate pro-vice chancellor graduate research, and was president of the New Zealand Mathematical Society for 2017–2019.

Education and career After earning bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Auckland, Kirk went to the University of Cambridge for doctoral studies. She completed her Ph.D. in 1990; her dissertation, Destruction of tori in dissipative flows, was supervised by Nigel Weiss.

She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley and at the California Institute of Technology. Kirk's notable students include Alona Ben-Tal.

Books Kirk is the co-author of the books Mathematical Analysis of Complex Cellular Activity (Springer, 2015) and Models of Calcium Signalling (Springer, 2016).

Recognition In 2017, Kirk won the Miriam Dell Excellence in Science Mentoring Award of New Zealand's Association for Women in the Sciences, in part for her efforts in founding and running a series of annual workshops for young women in mathematics and physics since 2007.