CTAC2012 was the 16th biennial Computational Techniques and Applications Conference, and took place at Queensland University of Technology from 23 - 26 September, 2012. The ANZIAM Special Interest Group in Computational Techniques and Applications is responsible for the CTAC meetings, the first of which was held in 1981. Mike Osborne recorded some of the early history of CTAC in this online article [ANZIAM J(E), 42 (2000)]

This Special Section of the ANZIAM Journal (Electronic Supplement) contains the refereed conference papers.

Seven invited speakers participated in the conference:

• Peter Bartlett, Queensland University of Technology
  Methods for large scale model selection problems
• Markus Hegland, Australian National University
  Some challenges and approaches for the numerical solution of multi-dimensional partial differential equations
• Jeff Kepert, Bureau of Meteorology
  Harnessing mathematics to forecast severe weather
• Ralf Metzler, University of Potsdam
  What Einstein did not know: Anomalous diffusion and ergodicity breaking
• Valeria Simoncini, Universita di Bologna
  Model-assisted effective large scale matrix computations
• Richard Tsai, University of Texas
  Multiscale numerical methods for highly oscillatory dynamical systems
• Stephen Wright, University of Wisconsin
  Optimization algorithms in data-intensive applications

The presentation by Jeff Kepert was a public lecture.

The conference attracted a further 95 contributed talks. All articles appearing in the CTAC2012 proceedings have been peer reviewed by at least two referees, and in most cases undergone revision prior to acceptance.

The editors, Scott McCue, Timothy Moroney, Dann Mallet and Judith Bunder, thank all of the referees whose efforts have contributed greatly to the quality of the conference proceedings.

CTAC2012 Organising Committee

• Ian Turner (Chair)
• John Belward
• Kevin Burrage
• Fawang Liu
• Dann Mallet
• Scott McCue
• Timothy Moroney
• Qianqian Yang

CTAC2012 Scientific Committee

• Ian Turner (Chair), QUT
• Steve Armfield (CMG Chair), USyd
• Kevin Burrage, QUT
• Markus Hegland, ANU
• Stephen Roberts, ANU
• Thanh Tran, UNSW
• Dann Mallet, QUT
• Scott McCue, QUT
• Timothy Moroney, QUT

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge support from the following organisations:

• Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation;
• sgi - The Trusted Leader in Technical Computing;
• Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute;
• Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics;
• CSIRO - Mathematical and Information Sciences;
• Altair Engineering, Inc;
• Science and Engineering Faculty, QUT;
• Mathematical Sciences School, QUT;