Cheryl Praeger

Cheryl Elisabeth Praeger (born 7 September 1948, Toowoomba, Queensland) is an Australian mathematician.

Praeger received BSc (1969) and MSc degrees from the University of Queensland (1974), and a doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1973 under direction of Peter M. Neumann.

After earning her doctorate in 1973, she obtained a research fellowship at ANU.

She had her first opportunity at teaching regular classes at the University of Virginia during the semester she worked there.

Afterwards, she returned to ANU, where she met her future husband, John Henstridge, who was studying statistics.

She was later offered a short-term position at the University of Western Australia, which turned into a long term position, where she currently works today.

She was appointed full professor in 1983 and was head of the Department of Mathematics 1992–1994, inaugural dean of postgraduate research studies 1996–1998, chair Promotions and Tenure Committee 2000–2004, deputy dean of the Faculty of Engineering Computing and Mathematics 2003–2006, ARC Professorial Fellow 2007.

In 1989 she received the degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Western Australia for her work on permutation groups and algebraic graph theory.

Her career has been largely spent in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Western Australia.

Australian Mathematical Society (1992–1994 and first female president of the society).

Between 1992 and 2019 she was a board member of the Australian Mathematics Trust.

Praeger has supervised over 30 graduate students and in 1997 she supervised the Honours research work of Akshay Venkatesh who went on to win a 2018 Fields Medal, commonly regarded as the highest prize in mathematics.

During her career, Praeger has been invited to speak at many conferences, including ones in Croatia, Canada, China, USA, UK, South Korea, Singapore, Sweden, Slovakia, Serbia, Hong Kong, Morocco, Slovakia, Slovenia, France, Germany, Greece, USSR, Belgium, Iran, Italy, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Japan.

Praeger is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, former president of the

She was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in 1999 and promoted to Companion in 2021.

Awards and honours include:

From 2001 to 2019 she chaired the Australian Mathematical Olympiad Committee.

She is currently a member of the National Science and Technology Council that provides advice to the prime minister and the minister for science.

Between 2007 and 2014 Praeger was a member of the executive committee of the International Mathematical Union and between 2013 and 2016 a vice president of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction.

and ARC Federation Fellow in 2009.

Since 2014, the Women in Mathematics Special Interest Group of the Australian Mathematical Society bestows the Cheryl E. Praeger Travel Awards to female mathematicians.

Between 2014 and 2018 Praeger was foreign secretary of the Australian Academy of Science.

She was elected as a Member-at-Large of the executive board of the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA) for 2016–18 and accepted an invitation to chair the AASSA Committee of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE).

Since 2017 the Australian Mathematics Trust has awarded the Cheryl Praeger Medal to the best performing female contestants in the Australian Mathematics Competition.

Praeger has also held memberships with the Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia, Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications, Australian Mathematics Trust, American Mathematical Society, and the London Mathematical Society.

Her past affiliations have not been limited to academia.

Praeger has been a member of the Curriculum Development Council of the Commonwealth Schools Commission, the Prime Ministers Science Advisory Council, WISET Advisory Committee to the Federal Minister for Science on participation of women in Science, Engineering, and Technology, UWA Academy of Young Mathematicians Lectures, the Western Australian School Mathematics Enrichment Course Tutor, and Data Analysis Australia Pty Ltd. She has also served on the Australian Federation of University Women (Western Australian Branch) and the Nedlands Primary School Council.

She is a Member of the executive committee of the Inter Academy Partnership - Science, 2017–19.

She has published widely and has advised 27 PhD students (as of March 2018).

She is currently Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Western Australia.

She is best known for her works in group theory, algebraic graph theory and combinatorial designs.

Praeger completed her high school education at Brisbane Girls Grammar School.

After graduating high school, Praeger went to the government vocational guidance section to inquire about how she could further study mathematics.

The vocational guidance officer she spoke with tried to discourage her from studying mathematics further, suggesting she become a teacher or a nurse because two other girls who came to him wanting to study maths were not able to pass their courses.

He reluctantly showed her an engineering course description, but she felt it did not have enough mathematics.

So she left without getting much information that day, but did continue on to receive her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Queensland.

Having met several women on the mathematics staff during her undergraduate studies, the prospect of becoming a mathematician did not seem strange to her.

During her first and second years she did honours studies in mathematics and physics, choosing to continue in mathematics after her second year.

After completing her education at University of Queensland she was offered a research scholarship at Australian National University (ANU) but chose instead to take the Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Oxford and attended St Anne's College.

At that point she knew she wanted to study algebra.