Rate My Professor Michael Haythorpe

Dr. Michael Haythorpe is a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Flinders University in the College of Science and Engineering. He earned a Bachelor of Applied Science in 2004, a Bachelor of Applied Science (Honours) in 2005, and a PhD in Mathematics in 2010, all from the University of South Australia. His doctoral dissertation, "Markov chain based algorithms for the Hamiltonian Cycle Problem," was supervised by Jerzy Andrzej Filar and Walter Murray. Haythorpe has been at Flinders University since 2011, serving as Lecturer B from 2014 and Senior Lecturer from 2017. He is Co-Director of the Flinders Hamiltonian Cycle Project and has supervised PhD students including Kieran Clancy in 2017, Asghar Moeini in 2016, Pouya Baniasadi in 2019, and Alexander Newcombe in 2019.

Haythorpe's research interests encompass graph theory, numerical optimisation, computational mathematics, and algorithm development, with a focus on efficient algorithms and heuristics for NP-complete graph problems such as Hamiltonian cycles and crossing numbers. His notable publications include "A cross-entropy method for optimising robotic automated storage and retrieval systems" in the International Journal of Production Research (2018), "A survey of graphs with known or bounded crossing numbers" in the Australasian Journal of Combinatorics (2020), "Deterministic “Snakes and Ladders” Heuristic for the Hamiltonian cycle problem" in Mathematical Programming Computation (2014), and the book "Markov chain based algorithms for the hamiltonian cycle problem" (2013). He has contributed to 35 research outputs. Awards received include the Dean's Merit List and Chancellor's List (2001-2004), Australian Postgraduate Award (2006-2009), first place in the T.M. Cherry Prize (2008), honourable mentions in the T.M. Cherry Prize (2009, 2010), AustMS Lift-off Fellowship (2010), Executive Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence (2017), FUSA Student Led Teaching award (2021), and Defence Grant AI4DM (2020-2022). He served on the organising committee for AustMS 2015 as secretary and ANZIAM 2017.