Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) has announced seven recipients of prestigious prizes that will be awarded at the SIAM Annual Meeting (AN24), taking place July 8-12, 2024, in Spokane, WA. Awardees will be recognized during the conference for their research contributions, lifetime achievements, and service to the field. The SIAM Annual Meeting provides a broad view of the state of the art in applied mathematics, computational science, and their applications through these prize lectures as well as invited presentations, minitutorials, minisymposia, contributed presentations, and posters.
SIAM congratulates these prize recipients for their hard work, dedication, and impressive contributions, which strengthen and enhance the landscape of applied mathematics, computational science, and data science worldwide. SIAM would also like to thank all the nominators who recognized their colleagues for their accomplishments.
Sunčica Čanić, University of California, Berkeley
AWM-SIAM Kovalevsky Lecture
Professor Sunčica Čanić is a highly influential applied mathematician working in modeling, analysis, and computations of partial differential equations. She has made profound contributions across a wide spectrum of mathematics, ranging from mathematical analysis of complex physical phenomena, designing new numerical methods, proving their convergence, testing them in rigorous environments, and then applying these workhorse tools to highly practical problems of breakthrough practical importance. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN24 with an associated lecture.
Caoimhe Rooney, Astroscale
I. E. Block Community Lecture
The I. E. Block Community Lecture, to be given by Caoimhe Rooney of Astroscale on the applications of mathematics to solve world issues, is free and open to the public. As a Flight Dynamics Engineer, Caoimhe works on the design, development, and operation of in-orbit servicer spacecrafts to remove space debris at Astroscale. She was honored on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list for Science and Healthcare (2022), and co-founded Mathematigals (2020), an educational initiative to make math accessible and promote representation of women in STEM. She has also presented at numerous professional and public events, including the 2023 SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering and the 2022 IoD Northern Ireland Women’s Leadership Conference. The talk, which is intended to encourage public appreciation of the excitement and vitality of science by reaching students, teachers, and members of the local community, will be uploaded to YouTube following the event happening at SIAM AN24 on July 10, 2024. More details will be available in coming months.
Jorge Nocedal, Northwestern University
John von Neumann Prize
The 2024 John von Neumann Prize is awarded to Jorge Nocedal for his fundamental work in nonlinear optimization, both in the deterministic and stochastic settings. His research comprises numerous contributions to quasi-Newton methods, interior-point methods, and the theoretical foundations of stochastic gradient methods that are pivotal to machine learning. His leadership resulted in the creation of L-BFGS-B and KNITRO, two software products that remain highly influential in a broad range of applications. He is the co-author of the distinguished textbook Numerical Optimization, which has become a modern classic in applied mathematics. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN24 with an associated lecture.
John C. Urschel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Richard C. DiPrima Prize
The 2024 Richard C. DiPrima Prize is awarded to John C. Urschel for outstanding contributions to fundamental problems in applied linear algebra developed in his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Graphs, Principal Minors, and Eigenvalue Problems.” This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN24.
David L. Brown, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession
The 2024 SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession is awarded to David Brown in recognition of his decades of commitment to enriching the computational science community. David has been a driving force behind the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Program at the Department of Energy (DOE), designing, crafting, and leading a unique program for training Ph.D. students to become the next generation of computational scientists. He has contributed to a number of community studies, including the highly influential “Brown Report” that was used as a roadmap for a decade of investments in applied mathematics both at the labs and in academia by the DOE. David has also been a tireless advocate for diversity and inclusion as showcased by his leadership in starting the Sustainable Research Pathways program which has supported hundreds of young scientists from minority-serving institutions, and has become a role-model for attracting underrepresented groups to the national labs. David’s efforts will continue to pay dividends to the SIAM community for many years to come. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN24.
Karen E. Willcox, The University of Texas at Austin
Theodore von Kármán Prize
The 2024 Theodore von Kármán Prize is awarded to Karen E. Willcox for a notable application of mathematics to mechanics and/or the engineering sciences made during the five to ten years preceding the award. The award may be given for a significant achievement by one individual or a significant body of work that could have been produced by multiple contributors. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN24 with an associated lecture.
Benedetto Piccoli, Rutgers University, Camden
W. T. & Idalia Reid Prize
The 2024 W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize is awarded to Benedetto Piccoli for his contributions to the fields of optimal control, conservation laws, and applications to vehicular traffic, robotics, and biology. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN24 with an associated lecture.