Rate My Professor Barbara Maenhaut

Associate Professor Barbara Maenhaut is Head of Mathematics and Deputy Head of School in the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Queensland. She obtained a Bachelor of Mathematics with Honours from the University of Waterloo and a Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics from the University of Queensland in 1999. Her research focuses on combinatorial design theory and graph theory, encompassing projects on graph decompositions, Latin squares, and perfect one-factorisations. In addition to her research, Maenhaut chairs the School's Teaching and Learning Committee and is an accomplished educator who teaches first- and second-year discrete mathematics, as well as advanced courses in graph theory, design theory, coding and cryptography. Her teaching portfolio includes MATH1071 Advanced Calculus & Linear Algebra I, MATH3302 Coding & Cryptography, MATH2302 Discrete Mathematics II, and others at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Maenhaut has produced over 40 peer-reviewed publications between 1997 and 2024 in leading venues such as the Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, Journal of Graph Theory, Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, and Australasian Journal of Combinatorics. Select publications include 'An infinite family of connected 1-factorisations of complete 3-uniform hypergraphs' (2024, with J. Mitchell and A. Puskas), 'Perfect 1-factorisations of complete k-uniform hypergraphs' (2023, with S. Davies and J. Mitchell), 'Uniform decompositions of complete multigraphs into cycles' (2018, with D. Berry, D. Bryant, and M. Dean), 'Decompositions of complete multigraphs into cycles of varying lengths' (2018, with D. Bryant, D. Horsley, and B.R. Smith), 'On Hamilton decompositions of infinite circulant graphs' (2018, with D. Bryant, S. Herke, and B.S. Webb), 'Face 2-colorable embeddings with faces of specified lengths' (2015, with B.R. Smith), 'Indivisible plexes in latin squares' (2009, with D. Bryant, J. Egan, and I.M. Wanless), and 'New families of atomic Latin squares and perfect 1-factorisations' (2006, with D. Bryant and I.M. Wanless). She has obtained Australian Research Council funding through Discovery Projects such as Factorisations of graphs (2013-2015) and Linkage Projects like Virtual Transport Networks (2012-2014), as well as involvement in the ongoing Fractional decomposition of graphs and the Nash-Williams conjecture (2024-2028). Maenhaut has supervised PhD and Masters students on topics including uniform cycle decompositions of complete multigraphs and generalisations of uniform and perfect 1-factorisations of graphs. Her contributions have earned her recognition as an award-winning teacher, including the 2017 Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, University of Queensland Awards for Teaching Excellence, Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, and the 2017 AustMS WIMSIG Cheryl E. Praeger Travel Award.