Alice Devillers

Alice Devillers is an Associate Professor in Mathematics and Statistics in the School of Physics, Mathematics and Computing at the University of Western Australia. Born in Belgium in 1976, she earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles between 1994 and 1998. She then pursued a PhD in the Service de Géométrie within the Département de Mathématiques at the same institution, completing it in January 2002 with funding from the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique. Her doctoral research centered on the classification of some homogeneous and ultrahomogeneous structures. Post-PhD, Devillers held a fellowship from the Belgian American Education Foundation, enabling her to work at Michigan State University with Professor Jonathan Hall from October 2002 to September 2003. She subsequently returned to the Université Libre de Bruxelles as a Chargé de Recherche funded by the FNRS until 2008. Following research visits to the University of Western Australia with Professor Cheryl Praeger in 2006 and 2007, she relocated to Perth in September 2008 as a Research Associate under Praeger's supervision, later advancing to her current associate professorship. Since 2013, she has supervised doctoral students.

Devillers' research expertise lies in permutation group theory, encompassing algebraic graph theory, combinatorial designs, finite geometries, and incidence structures such as buildings. She is actively involved in the Centre for the Mathematics of Symmetry and Computation and serves as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Contact Officer for her school. Her contributions include serving as Chief Investigator on Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP130100106. Notable publications feature "Arc-transitive bicirculants" (Journal of the London Mathematical Society, 2022), "Analysing flag-transitive point-imprimitive 2-designs" (Annales de l'Institut Fourier, 2023), "Block-transitive 2-designs with a chain of imprimitive point partitions" (Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A, 2023), "On the simple connectedness of certain subsets of buildings" (Advances in Geometry, 2007), "An alternative way to generalize the pentagon" (Designs, Codes and Cryptography, 2013), and "Automorphisms and opposition in twin buildings" (Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society, 2013). These works, often in collaboration with Praeger, Michael Giudici, and others, advance understanding of symmetry and transitivity in finite structures. Devillers also engages in teaching, coordinating units such as Multivariable Calculus, and provides testimonials for educational software like Sowiso.

Professional Email: alice.devillers@uwa.edu.au