Associate Professor – Mathematics

Office: AS3022

Phone:  (709) 637-6293

Email: robert.bailey@mun.ca

Web page: https://www.math.mun.ca/rbailey00/

 

Profile

I joined Grenfell Campus in 2013, following postdoctoral fellowships at Ryerson University (2012-13), the University of Regina (2009-12) and Carleton University (2007-09).  I studied at the University of Leeds (1998-2002) and at Queen Mary, University of London (2002-06), in the UK, and was also an exchange student at the University of Waterloo (2000-01).

I teach courses in mathematics and statistics in all areas and at all levels.  At Grenfell, this has included Calculus I, II, and III, Linear Algebra I, Discrete Mathematics, Abstract Algebra I, Applied Graph Theory, Real Analysis I, Statistics for Science Students, Mathematics for Business, and Advanced Graph Theory. I also regularly supervise students’ senior projects.

My mathematical interests are in discrete mathematics: loosely, this means "things you can count".  This includes graph theory (think of models of molecules or computer networks), combinatorial design theory (think of the solution to a Sudoku puzzle), coding theory (think of transmitting a message accurately) and group theory (think of symmetries of complex shapes). 

Along with my students, I am responsible for developing and maintaining the website www.distanceregular.org, which is an online database of distance-regular (and strongly regular) graphs available for researchers to download.

 

Research Interests

Discrete mathematics and algebra, specifically

• Algebraic graph theory
• Combinatorial design theory
• Permutation groups
• Error-correcting codes

 

Recent Publications

• Decoding twisted permutation codes (with K. B. Nicholson), Australasian Journal of Combinatorics 88 (2024), 144–159.
• Block colourings of star systems (with I. Darijani), Discrete Mathematics 346 (2023), 113404 (14 pp).
• On the classification of binary completely transitive codes with almost-simple top-group (with D.R. Hawtin), European Journal of Combinatorics 107 (2023), 103604 (28pp).
• Metric dimension of dual polar graphs (with P. Spiga), Archiv der Mathematik (Basel) 120 (2023), 467–478.
• On the 486-vertex distance-regular graphs of Koolen–Riebeek and Soicher (with D.R. Hawtin), Electronic Journal of Combinatorics 27 (2020), P3.13 (12pp).
• On orthogonal matrices with zero diagonal (with R. Craigen), Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra 35 (2019), 307–318.
• Error-correcting codes from k-resolving sets (with I. González Yero), Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory 39:2 (2019), 341–355.
• On the metric dimension of incidence graphs, Discrete Mathematics 341 (2018), 1613–1619.
• On the metric dimension of imprimitive distance-regular graphs, Annals of Combinatorics 20 (2016), 641–659.
• On generalized Howell designs with block size three (with R.J.R. Abel, A.C. Burgess, P. Danziger and E. Mendelsohn), Designs, Codes and Cryptography 81 (2016), 365–391.
• The metric dimension of small distance-regular and strongly regular graphs, Australasian Journal of Combinatorics 62:1 (2015), 18–34.
• Generalized packing designs (with A.C. Burgess), Discrete Mathematics 313 (2013), 1167–1190.
• Resolving sets in Johnson and Kneser graphs (with J. Cáceres, D. Garijo, A. González, A. Márquez, K. Meagher and M.L. Puertas), European Journal of Combinatorics 34 (2013), 736–751.
• On the metric dimension of Grassmann graphs (with K. Meagher), Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science 13:4 (2011), 97–104.
• Generalized covering designs and clique coverings (with A.C. Burgess, M.S. Cavers and K. Meagher), Journal of Combinatorial Designs 19 (2011), 378–406.
• Base size, metric dimension and other invariants of groups and graphs (with P.J. Cameron), Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society 43 (2011), 209–242.