Matthew J. Colbrook
Matthew J. Colbrook, University of Cambridge, is the 2022 recipient of the Richard C. DiPrima Prize and will be recognized for the award during the SIAM Annual Meeting. Colbrook received the prize for the high quality and mathematical innovation of his Ph.D. dissertation on the computation of spectra in infinite dimensions.
The Richard C. DiPrima Prize is awarded every two years to one early career researcher who has done outstanding research in applied mathematics and who has completed his/her doctoral dissertation and completed all other requirements for his/her doctorate.
Colbrook earned his undergraduate and master's degrees in mathematics at the University of Cambridge, winning the Mayhew Prize in applied mathematics. He continued at Cambridge for his PhD. His work on spectral computations has also won the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications Lighthill-Thwaites Prize and Cambridge's Smith-Knight Prize. His research focuses on the numerical analysis of deep learning/neural networks for scientific computation; data-driven dynamical systems; infinite-dimensional spectral problems; PDEs; and a framework for determining the boundaries of what is, and is not, computationally possible. Colbrook is currently a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, and holds a FSMP Fellowship at École Normale Supérieure.
Q: Why are you excited to receive the DiPrima Prize?
A: First, it is a great honor and encouragement to receive the DiPrima Prize, and I would like to thank SIAM. I am excited because this means that other mathematicians are interested in my research, and I hope that it inspires further researchers to pursue similar paths.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the accomplishments that won you the prize?
A: A vast number of problems in science and engineering are either intrinsically infinite-dimensional or involve an infinite amount of data. Examples include differential and integral operators, the Fourier transform, spectra of operators, signal processing, approximation theory, and the training of neural networks. However, we can only perform computations using a finite computer that executes a finite number of operations on a finite amount of data. How, then, can we reliably approximate an infinite problem by a finite one? An infinite-dimensional approach to numerical analysis is often crucial to answering this question.
For example, spectral computations in infinite dimensions are ubiquitous in the sciences. However, their many applications and theoretical studies depend on infamously difficult computations. My thesis addresses the broad question, "What is computationally possible within the field of spectral theory of Hilbert spaces?" The boundaries of what computers can achieve in computational spectral theory and mathematical physics are largely unknown. My thesis constructs different methods for infinite-dimensional spectral problems. Furthermore, I classify the difficulty of computational problems and prove that algorithms are optimal. The framework provided by my thesis can be applied to other areas in computational mathematics, including optimization, neural networks, PDEs, and computer-assisted proofs.
Q: What does your work and service mean to the public?
A: As science and society become increasingly reliant on infinite-dimensional computations, it is essential to understand what is computationally possible and design optimal algorithms. For example, physicists can now use these new techniques to compute energy levels of quantum systems with error bounds and have even used them to verify the discovery of a new type of quantum state in quasicrystals. Recently, I have applied the framework to uncover intrinsic barriers in the training of stable and accurate neural networks. This is of particular use in areas such as medical imaging, where one wishes to avoid so-called AI hallucinations and develop trustworthy systems.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to you?
A: Mathematics is not something done in isolation, and it is fantastic to be part of SIAM's supportive and collaborative community. For example, I have very much enjoyed attending SIAM conferences, making new friends, and giving talks. One of the greatest joys of mathematics is working with brilliant people, and SIAM provides an excellent catalyst for this. I would like to take this opportunity to thank others in the community with whom I have interacted, especially my collaborators.
Jim Crowley
Jim Crowley is the 2022 recipient of the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession and will be recognized during the SIAM Annual Meeting for the award. Crowley received the prize in recognition of his extraordinary dedication to promoting applied mathematics through his work with SIAM, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM). The prize is awarded every year to an applied mathematician who has made distinguished contributions to the furtherance of applied mathematics on the national or international level.
Crowley served as Executive Director of SIAM for 25 years, beginning in 1994. Prior to that, he spent over 22 years in various positions in the Air Force, beginning as a mathematician at an Air Force laboratory. He was on the mathematics faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy for a number of years, until he left that position as a tenured associate professor to go to Air Force Office of Scientific Research where he headed the directorate of Mathematics and Information Science as its director. He later served as program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, among other positions before coming to SIAM in 1994. He received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Brown University, an M.S. in mathematics from Virginia Polytechnic and State University, and an undergraduate degree in mathematics from the College of the Holy Cross.
Q: Why are you excited to receive the Prize for Distinguished Service?
A: I am both thrilled and surprised to have received this prize. Thrilled because it represents an honor bestowed on me by my peers, which recognizes the service from various places not always recognized: scientific societies, funding agencies, and government laboratories. I am surprised because there are so many other deserving individuals.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the accomplishments that won you the prize?
A: The prize recognizes my service as the Executive Director of SIAM. Over my 25 years at SIAM, the organization grew in size and scope, adding emphases in new areas like computational science, data science, and uncertainty quantification (to name only a few). SIAM added new journals and conferences to cover these new areas. SIAM also grew internationally with new members from across the globe, and new sections to serve many of those members. And SIAM reinvigorated student chapters to serve the needs of our student members. I would like to think that SIAM also became more diverse, welcoming members from a wide spectrum of interests and backgrounds. I cannot say that I did this on my own, of course. I owe these accomplishments and this award to a wonderful group of leaders from the SIAM community, especially the officers (presidents and vice presidents, Board and Council members) who do so much on behalf of SIAM; and to each and every member of the SIAM staff who have devoted their careers to serving the SIAM members and the larger community which we serve.
Q: What does your work and service mean to the public?
A: My work has been in the service of applied mathematics, broadly defined, to the outstanding group of people who work in this field. It is my fondest hope that our work in publications, public policy, and outreach have raised the level of knowledge about and interest in applied mathematics and scientific computing.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to you?
A: I have been a devoted member of SIAM since 1978. SIAM helped guide my career, stoked my interests in various areas of applied mathematics by providing relevant publications and valuable contacts throughout my life as an applied mathematician. SIAM and those contacts remain my friends for life.
Anne Greenbaum
Anne Greenbaum, University of Washington, has been selected to deliver the 2022 AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture at the SIAM Annual Meeting. Greenbaum was chosen for her lasting and significant impact on many aspects of numerical linear algebra, including her solving fundamental problems in convergence theory for linear systems and eigenvalue problems, non-normal matrices, and functions of matrices. Her lecture is titled “Two of my Favorite Problems” and will be delivered at the Annual Meeting on Monday, July 11 at 2:45 p.m. EDT.
The AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture is awarded annually by the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and SIAM to highlight significant contributions of women to applied or computational mathematics.
Greenbaum is a professor in the applied mathematics department at the University of Washington. She received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1974. She then landed a job at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and, shortly thereafter, she began a doctoral program at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1981, with Beresford Parlett and Paul Concus as co-advisors. In 1986, she accepted a research position at the Courant Institute, where she stayed until 1997, when she came to the University of Washington as a professor in the mathematics department. In 2009, she moved from the math department to the applied math department, where she is currently.
Much of her research is concerned with analysis of numerical methods, especially iterative methods for solving linear systems and computing matrix functions, and alternatives to eigenvalues for describing the behavior of functions of nonnormal matrices. She has two books: One published by SIAM in 1997, entitled Iterative Methods for Solving Linear Systems, and the other, joint with Tim Chartier and published by Princeton University Press in 2012, entitled Numerical Methods: Design, Analysis, and Computer Implementation of Algorithms.
In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of SIAM, and other honors include the B. Bolzano Honorary Medal for Merit in the Mathematical Sciences from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in 1997, and the SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra award, joint with Z. Strakoš, for Outstanding Paper in Applicable Linear Algebra during 1991-1993.
Q: Why are you excited to receive the award of the AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture?
A: It is an honor to give a lecture under the name of such an outstanding mathematician and such a strong proponent for women in mathematics.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the research that won you the prize?
A: I have done a lot of work on analyzing the behavior of numerical methods, such as iterative methods for solving large linear systems. This is especially challenging when such methods are implemented on computers using finite precision arithmetic. It is also challenging when the matrices involved are highly nonnormal, which implies that the analysis cannot necessarily be done in terms of eigenvalues.
Q: What does your work mean to the public?
A: To be honest, my work is one step removed from the public. The analysis of algorithms that I work on enables engineers and scientists to use these methods effectively to solve problems that have more direct impact on the public — everything from design of aircraft to predictions of the spread of COVID-19.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to you?
A: SIAM is the glue that holds the applied mathematics community together. It brings our students into the field through our graduate student organization, SIAMUW. Its many journals and conferences and activity groups keep us all connected.
Antti Kupiainen, Rémi Rhodes, and Vincent Vargas
Antti Kupiainen (University of Helsinki), Rémi Rhodes (University of Aix-Marseille), and Vincent Vargas (University of Geneva) are the 2022 recipients of the George Pólya Prize in Mathematics. The team received the award for a rigorous justification of the DOZZ formula for three-point structure constants in Liouville Conformal Field Theory. They will be recognized for their award during the SIAM Annual Meeting.
The George Pólya Prize in Mathematics is awarded every four years for a significant contribution, as evidenced by a refereed publication, in an area of mathematics of interest to George Pólya not covered by the George Pólya Prize in Applied Combinatorics or the George Pólya Prize for Mathematical Exposition. Such areas may include approximation theory, complex analysis, number theory, orthogonal polynomials, probability theory, and mathematical discovery and learning. The prize is broadly intended to recognize specific recent work.
Kupiainen is professor of mathematics at the University of Helsinki. He received his M.S. in mathematics from Helsinki University of Technology in 1976 and his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton in 1979. After postdoc work at Harvard and periods at the Institute for Advance Study at Princeton, Harvard, and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris, he became professor of mathematics at Rutgers University. Since 1992, he has been employed by the University of Helsinki and the Academy of Finland. He has worked on mathematical problems connected to quantum field theory, statistical mechanics, turbulence, and most recently on Liouville quantum gravity. He has benefited from working in collaboration with several excellent scientists including Krzysztof Gawedzki and Jean Bricmont, and most recently Rhodes and Vargas. He has been the recipient of the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant twice and an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematics (ICM) twice. In 2021, he was awarded the American Physical Society Dannie Heineman Prize in Mathematical Physics.
Rhodes is a professor at the University of Aix-Marseille and a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of Marseille in the Probability team of the Mathematics of Randomness group, since 2018. After graduating from ENS Paris-Saclay, he defended his thesis in 2006 at the University of Provence. In 2007, he became a lecturer at Paris-Dauphine University. Then, in 2014, he was assigned to the Laboratory of Analysis and Applied Mathematics at the University of Paris-Est Marne la Vallée until 2018, when he returned to his hometown. In 2019, he was appointed junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France for 5 years. As a probabilist, his research themes are concerned with Gaussian multiplicative chaos, Liouville field theory, and the probabilistic approach to quantum field theories. Jointly with Vargas in 2019, he received the Marc Yor Prize from the Société mathématique de France and the French Academy of Science for his work on Liouville conformal field theory.
Vargas has been an associate professor at the University of Geneva since September 2021. Before that, he was Directeur de Recherche at CNRS. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, his M.S. from University Paris 6, and his Ph.D. degree in probability theory from University Paris 7. As a probabilist, his research themes are concerned with Gaussian multiplicative chaos, Liouville field theory, and the probabilistic approach to quantum field theories and mathematical finance. Jointly with Rhodes, he received the Marc Yor prize from the Société mathématique de France and the French Academy of Science for his work on Liouville conformal field theory.
Q: Why are you all excited to receive the Pólya Prize in Mathematic?
A: It is a great honor for us to receive the Pólya Prize for numerous reasons. First, it is incredible to be associated in some sense to Pólya's name. Indeed, while undergraduate students, we all came across his fundamental theorem on random walks. Second, the list of previous recipients of the prize is very impressive.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the accomplishments that won you all the prize?
A: Quantum field theory (QFT) is one of the greatest success stories of theoretical physics as it provides a universal framework for high energy physics and also for the physics of phase transitions. Nonetheless, the mathematical structure behind QFT is still quite mysterious in many cases.
Certain QFTs possess special symmetries under rotations and dilations of space-time; these special QFTs are called Conformal field theories (CFT) and they are very important due to their link to statistical physics. CFT was developed in the 80's by Belavin, Polyakov, and Zamolodchikov using a recursive technique called the conformal bootstrap. Among the class of CFTs, there is a special CFT called Liouville CFT which appears in a wide variety of contexts in physics and mathematics: string theory, Yang-Mills theory, and random geometry. Together with Francois David (CEA, Saclay) in 2014, we developed a rigorous probabilistic formulation of Liouville CFT. This forms the basis of our proof of the DOZZ formula for the structure constants of Liouville CFT, for which we were awarded the Pólya Prize. Together with Colin Guillarmou (University Paris-Saclay), we have recently determined the second basic input to the bootstrap approach, namely the spectrum of the theory and completed the proof of the equivalence of the rigorous probabilistic formulation of Liouville CFT and the bootstrap hypothesis.
Q: What does your work and service mean to the public?
A: Our work is foundational, at the interface of theoretical physics and mathematics, as it aims to unveil the mathematical structure behind Quantum Field Theory. We believe this is an essential task because QFT is the theoretical framework used to describe the fundamental laws of nature as well as many questions in condensed matter physics and their applications to technology. QFT is a beautiful and useful set of theoretical ideas, and we believe it can serve as an inspiration also for non-specialists.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to all of you?
A: Though our work is quite theoretical, we believe that is essential to develop the relations between mathematics and its applications to industry. For us, being a member of SIAM means supporting and reinforcing this interaction which generates wealth and creates employment. In particular, some of the tools from probability theory in our work on CFT are closely related and very useful to models that appear in applied mathematics, and the gap between theoretical probability and applied probability is really nonexistent.
Michael J. Ward
Michael J. Ward, University of British Columbia, has been selected to receive the 2022 Julian Cole Lectureship at the SIAM Annual Meeting. Ward was selected for his seminal and wide-ranging contributions to the development and application of singular perturbation methods effective in the analysis of spatially localized structures in nonlinear PDEs. He will deliver a virtual talk titled “Strong Localized Perturbation theory for the Analysis of Localized Solutions to Some Nonlinear Diffusive Systems” on Thursday, July 14 at 3:00 p.m. EDT.
The Julian Cole Lectureship is awarded every four years to one individual for an outstanding contribution to the mathematical characterization and solution of a challenging problem in the physical or biological sciences, or in engineering, or for the development of mathematical methods for the solution of such problems.
Ward is a professor in the department of mathematics at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada. He received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from California Institute of Technology in 1988 and was a Szegö Instructor at Stanford under J.B. Keller from 1988-1991. After a further two-year PDF position at the Courant Institute, in 1993 he returned to his undergraduate alma matter at UBC, where he has been a full professor since 1998.
His research interests include the development and implementation of singular perturbation methods for the analysis of localized patterns for reaction-diffusion systems arising in various specific applications. Other interests include the analysis of concentration phenomena for certain problems with biophysical applications such as narrow capture and escape problems and for the study of quorum sensing systems and collective dynamics.
He is the co-editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Applied Mathematics. His awards include a Steacie Fellowship from NSERC (Canada), the Coxeter-James prize awarded by the Canadian Mathematical Society, the Andre-Aisenstadt prize from the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques in Montreal, and he received the Canadian Applied and Industrial Math Society Senior Research Prize in 2011. He was an invited speaker to the ICIAM held in Hamburg in 1995.
Q: Why are you excited to receive the Julian Cole Lectureship?
A: I am very honored to have been selected by the committee as the recipient of the Cole Lectureship for 2022. When I was a graduate student at Caltech in the mid 1980's and later as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford with J.B. Keller, I was strongly influenced by Julian Cole's prior work on developing systematic methods for obtaining analytical approximations of solutions to PDE's. More specifically, I was particularly intrigued by Julian's identification of classes of problems where singular perturbation methods seemingly fail to provide adequate approximate solutions. Much of my early work was focused on analyzing such challenging problems.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the accomplishments that won you the prize?
A: I am only guessing here, but my sense is that it involves the study of localization behavior in nonlinear PDE's. My early career was primarily focused on developing novel perturbation approaches for classes of problems, some of which identified by Julian Cole, where conventional singular perturbation methodologies seemingly fail to provide good approximate solutions. One class of such PDE problems arises when the linearization around an approximate solution is exponentially ill-conditioned in the limit of a small parameter, as is the case for problems related to dynamic metastability. Another such class, made notable by Julian Cole and other pioneers (Saul Kaplun and Paco Lagerstrom) in their study of steady-state low Reynolds number fluid flow past a cylindrical body, involved formulating effective methods for dealing with PDE problems whose approximating solutions involve infinite logarithmic expansions in terms of some gauge parameter. Over the past twenty years, one main area of my research focus has been to develop hybrid asymptotic-numerical methods for the analysis of localized patterns in reaction-diffusion systems that arise in specific applications such as biological morphogenesis, chemically interacting systems, or the continuum modeling of patterns of urban crime. These far-from-equilibrium patterns and their instabilities cannot be analyzed by either a conventional Turing-type stability analysis or from a weakly nonlinear theory. Singular perturbation methods that I originated with J.B. Keller in my postdoc at Stanford, referred collectively to as Strong Localized Perturbation theory, have been highly effective for analyzing pattern forming systems with localized solutions.
Q: What does your work and service mean to the public?
A: I will have to gently side-step this question with a response typical of a politician. As a theoretical applied mathematician, influenced by viewpoints originating in both pure and applied mathematics, my research focus has not typically been oriented towards industrial mathematics where one can hopefully study important modeling and technical problems in a specific area of application (i.e., tumor modeling, Lithium batteries etc.) that often directly benefit society. However, by having provided effective strategies for approximating solutions to various classes of nonlinear PDE, and from communicating these techniques to generations of graduate students, I have hopefully played some role in advancing the state-of-the-art in perturbation methods that can be used ubiquitously.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to you?
A: For me, SIAM has always been a gold standard with regards to the journals it publishes and the conferences that it supports in my general research direction, most notably the former Snowbird Dynamical Systems meeting. As an avid reader of SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, and Multiscale Modeling and Simulation, I have learned so much from other researchers, and this has often led to fruitful research collaborations.
Enrique Zuazua
Enrique Zuazua, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), has been selected as the 2022 recipient of the W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize. Zuazua received the prize for fundamental theoretical and computational contributions to the control, numerics, and analysis of nonlinear PDEs and multi-physical systems with impactful scientific and industrial applications. He will present a talk at the SIAM Annual Meeting titled “Control and Machine Learning” on Wednesday, July 13 at 3:00 p.m. EDT.
The W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize is awarded annually to one individual for research in, or other contributions to, the broadly defined areas of differential equations and control theory.
Zuazua received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of the Basque Country and a dual Ph.D. degree from the same university in 1987 and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris in 1988. In 1990, he became professor of applied mathematics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and later at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2001. He was awarded the Euskadi (Basque Country) Prize for Science and Technology in 2006, the Spanish National Julio Rey Pastor Prize in 2007, the Advanced Grants of the ERC NUMERIWAVES in 2010, and DyCon in 2016. He is a member of the of Academia Europaea and the Basque Academy Jakiunde, Doctor Honoris Causa from the Université de Lorraine in France and Ambassador of the Friedrich–Alexander Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg (FAU).
He was an invited speaker at ICM 2006 in the section on Control and Optimization. He was the first Scientific Manager of the Mathematics Programme of the Spanish National Research Plan (1999-2002), the Founding Scientific Director of the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics (2008-2012), and the founder of the Chair of Computational Mathematics at Deusto Foundation (2016), both in Bilbao, Spain. In 2021, he launched the Mathematics of Data Research Center at FAU. He is also a member of the scientific councils of international research institutions, such as the CERFACS in Toulouse, and a member of the executive board of some of the leading journals in applied mathematics. Since 2019, he has held the Chair for Dynamics, Control and Numerics – Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at FAU.
Q: Why are you excited to receive the Reid Prize?
A: The harmony of the world emerges out of an accumulation of shapes in motion. Understanding the intrinsic laws in which this giant and intricate puzzle is built is the task that the applied mathematician aims.
It is amazing that SIAM decided to award me for doing what I like to do, in the most favorable conditions. I am sincerely thankful. This certainly constitutes a great stimulus to continue working, linking the various areas of applied mathematics. The future is hard, if not impossible, to be anticipated. But we all know that there are fascinating mathematical questions that we do not yet understand. I am delighted to have the privilege of working on some of them.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the accomplishments that won you the prize?
A: This is a question that the selection committee could answer better than me, I guess. I devoted my academic life to the areas of partial differential equations (PDE), control theory, numerical analysis, and more recently, machine learning. And I enjoyed working in all aspects of academic life with colleagues all around world, and, in particular, mentoring young scientists. I also had the chance of getting involved in some ambitious collective endeavors, like the launching of new research centers. All in all, I suppose, my colleagues of the selection committee, have appreciated my passion for applied mathematics and the influence that my overall work had.
I realize, however, that all this would not have happened if I did not have the best teachers and mentors. Two of them, Jacques Louis Lions and Roland Glowinski, were awarded earlier with this same prize together with several other notable colleagues. Roland was at the origin of my nomination. He was one of the teachers I had in my master’s courses in Paris, back in my academic year in 1984-1985. He passed away recently. I can only recognize that I was a lucky mathematician standing on the shoulders of giants. Things are easy when one has good models to be inspired by. I was lucky enough to run an upwind academic career.
Q: What does your work and service mean to the public?
A: At present I am a Chair Professor of the Friedrich–Alexander Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg (FAU) in Erlangen, Germany, funded by a Humboldt Professorship. I also maintain part-time involvement in my home institutions in Spain, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Deusto Foundation in Bilbao.
I feel very comfortable working in these contexts, where the search of excellence is always aligned with the ultimate goal of serving our society. And it is great to do it, feeling the unconditional support of our university leaders.
As humans, we could have made things differently, maybe. But we decided to build our society, civilization after civilization, based on communication and mathematics. I feel honored and privileged to have the opportunity to devote my professional life to these noble values and endeavors, in working conditions that are extraordinarily generous. I am happy to take part on collective challenges, as the one SIAM represents.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to you?
A: Scientists in general and, in particular, applied mathematicians, constitute a worldwide community. We need instruments for networking and cooperation and SIAM constitutes the best platform to do it. I discovered SIAM while writing my Ph.D. thesis, since some of the most influential papers in my area were published in the SIAM Journals. Since then, and until now, SIAM has been a constant source of inspiration and a booster in all aspects of academic life.
William Anderson, North Carolina State University, is one of the 2022 recipients of the SIAM Student Paper Prize. He received the prize for his paper, “Evolution of nonlinear reduced-order solutions for PDEs with conserved quantities,” co-authored with Mohammad Farazmand, North Carolina State University. The paper was published in SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing (2022), Volume 44, Issue 1, A176 – A197. Anderson will present the paper at the SIAM Annual Meeting during Student Days on Wednesday, July 13 at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
The SIAM Student Paper Prize is awarded annually to the student author(s) of the most outstanding paper(s) accepted by SIAM journals within the three years preceding the nomination deadline. The award is based solely on the merit and content of the student's contribution to the submitted paper. Up to three awards are made every year.
Anderson is a Ph.D. student in the department of mathematics at North Carolina State University. His current research with Dr. Mohammad Farazmand focuses on developing new techniques for building reduced-order models for partial differential equations. He received his B.S. and M.S. in mathematics from Montclair State University.
Barbara I. Mahler, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, is one of the 2022 recipients of the SIAM Student Paper Prize. She received the prize for her paper, “Analysis of Contagion Maps on a Class of Networks that are Spatially Embedded in a Torus”. The paper was published in SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics (2021), Volume 81, Issue 4, 1416 – 1440. Mahler will present the paper at the SIAM Annual Meeting during Student Days on Wednesday, July 13 at 9:00 a.m. EDT.
The SIAM Student Paper Prize is awarded annually to the student author(s) of the most outstanding paper(s) accepted by SIAM journals within the three years preceding the nomination deadline. The award is based solely on the merit and content of the student's contribution to the submitted paper. Up to three awards are made every year.
Mahler is a postdoctoral researcher in the mathematics department at KTH Stockholm, where she works primarily in applied topology. She is part of dBrain, an interdisciplinary initiative to better understand neurodegenerative diseases. She completed her DPhil in 2019 at the University of Oxford, where she conducted the research for which she is awarded this prize.
Ruoxuan Yang
Ruoxuan Yang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is one of the 2022 recipients of the SIAM Student Paper Prize. She received the prize for her paper, “Shock formation of the Burgers--Hilbert equation,” published in the SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis (2021) Volume 53, Issue 5, 5756 – 5802.
The SIAM Student Paper Prize is awarded annually to the student author(s) of the most outstanding paper(s) accepted by SIAM journals within the three years preceding the nomination deadline. The award is based solely on the merit and content of the student's contribution to the submitted paper. Up to three awards are made every year.
Yang received her Ph.D. from MIT in May 2022 advised by Professor Gigliola Staffilani. Her research focuses on the analysis of partial differential equations in fluid dynamics. She will soon work for a database management company.
Q: Why are you excited to receive the SIAM Student Paper Prize?
A: It is such an honor to receive the 2022 SIAM Student Paper prize and be recognized by the broader math community as a Ph.D. student. This is my first paper, and I am very proud of it.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the research that won you the prize?
A: This paper establishes shock formation of the Burgers-Hilbert equation, a simple partial differential equation that approximates a certain 2D ideal fluid motion. We achieve this result by an explicit construction of the initial datum and the solution. The construction uses self-similar solutions of the Burgers' equation, which are well understood and have rich results on their own, and the modulated self-similar transformation which enjoys recent success in singularity formation of many fluid dynamic equations.
Q: What does your work mean to the public?
A: A longstanding problem that mathematicians have been trying to tackle is the motion of fluids. Because the full system of fluids is complex and often out of reach, we often simplify the system by studying an approximate model. One specific kind of such a simplified fluid model is the Burgers-Hilbert equation. Of interest is understanding the shock, also known as breaking-wave, solution, which encodes valuable information of the given partial differential equation. An explicit description of the shock solutions allows us to determine the scope of the approximation: under what conditions and how long within the initial time is the approximation valid? We can compare theoretical results with numerical simulations in order to answer this question.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to you?
A: Broadly, SIAM encapsulates a broad scope of mathematics, from applied mathematics to industrial applications. SIAM provides many opportunities for interactions between its members. It is a great pleasure and honor to publish in SIAM journals.
Valerio Lucarini
Valerio Lucarini, University of Reading, is the 2022 recipient of the SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth Prize for his novel application of ideas from statistical physics and linear response theory to the analysis of climate predictions and climate change implications. Lucarini will be recognized at the SIAM Annual Meeting and will also present a talk titled “Mathematics for the Climate Crisis” at the SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE22) on Friday, July 15 at 11:00 a.m. EDT.
The SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth Prize is awarded every two years to one individual for significant scientific work in topic areas that are relevant to the mathematics of planet earth or for sustained or seminal contributions to the scientific agenda of the Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth.
Lucarini was born in Ancona, Italy in 1976. He studied physics at Scuola Normale Superiore and at the University of Pisa. In 2002, He obtained in a M.Sc. in climate physics and chemistry at MIT, and a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Eastern Finland. He has held academic positions at the University of Bologna and at the University of Hamburg and is currently a professor of statistical mechanics at the University of Reading, where he directs the Centre for the Mathematics of Planet Earth. He has supervised over 10 Ph.D. students and over 20 M.Sc. students, some of whom have received important accolades from the European Space Agency, European Geosciences Union, and American Geophysical Union.
Lucarini is the recipient of the 2010 Arne Richter Award and the 2020 L.F. Richardson Medal of the European Geosciences Union, of the 2018 Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society and has delivered the 2021 Lorenz Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He has held visiting positions in P.R. China, France, Germany, Hungary, and Russia. After many years of participation on the editorial board of Nonlinear Processes of Geophysics and Earth System Dynamics, Lucarini is currently associate external editor of Physical Review E. He has organized many events for training and dissemination, including advanced schools in Les Houches, France and at the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh, as well as scientific programs at the I. Newton Institute in Cambridge and at the Institut Poincarž in Paris. Lucarini has held an individual grant from the European Research Council and is currently involved in two European Projects, TiPES and CriticalEarth.
Q: Why are you excited to receive the SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth Prize?
A: It is a great honor to be the recipient of the SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth Prize. I have invested so much energy and love in my academic work and it feels extremely good to receive such an important recognition of my work from the community of applied mathematicians. A key turning point in my career occurred in 2013, thanks to the International Scientific Year Mathematics of Planet Earth. I dedicated a lot of time to organizing events, including a very successful (and tiring!) scientific program at the I. Newton Institute in Cambridge, where I had the chance to exchange ideas with colleagues coming from the most varied personal and scientific backgrounds. During such a scientific program, I realized that it was worth trying to take angle of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, dynamical system theory, stochastic and extreme value theory to try to advance in a non-incremental way our understanding of the climate system. I was encouraged in my attempts and overall direction by Gallavotti, Ghil, Lebowitz, Ruelle, Speranza, and Yorke, just to name a few.
It has taken time to develop at least part of the scientific plan I had in mind, and since then I have recalibrated objectives and methodology. Of course, I owe enormously to the energy, intelligence, and creativity of the students and early career researchers with whom I have crossed path in these years. They have provided invaluable intellectual and personal support. I wish for them to explore exciting (and for me unthinkable!) research directions in uncharted territories. In this occasion, I wish to thank especially Alexis, Davide, Francesco, Jeroen, Manuel, Melinda, Sebastian, and Tamas. Finally, I wish to thank the institutions that have believed in me, and in particular the University of Hamburg and the University of Reading, and the community of scientists - within AGU, APS, EGU, SIAM - that I have had the privilege to interact with.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about the research that won you the prize?
A: The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex, and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject to various external forcings, natural as well as anthropogenic. While I see great merit in the use of ultra-simplified models (so called toy-models) for better understanding the properties of climate system, I thought that it would be much more interesting – both in mathematical terms and in terms of advancing our actual knowledge of the system – to try to use and adapt methods and concepts of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, (stochastic) dynamical systems, and probability theory to study the properties of possibly highly complex climate models and observational data. In the late '90s, Ruelle had proposed a rather general theory able to account how extra forcings would impact the statistics of a given nonequilibrium system obeying chaotic dynamics. I convinced myself that this viewpoint was extremely promising in terms of providing accurate and efficient climate projections using models of different levels of complexity. The lucky coincidence was that my Ph.D. in condensed matter physics – in my earlier scientific life – focused exactly on the linear and nonlinear response of optical materials to incoming radiation. So, I knew fairly well how to use response theory for near equilibrium systems.
It was not always easy to convince myself as well as many colleagues that, despite all of its complex nonlinearities and multiscale behavior, the response of a climate system to perturbations like the one due to increasing CO2 was to a very good approximation linear (at least for a reasonable range of forcing intensity). The magic was that this viewpoint was able to immediately generalize classical concepts of climate science such as equilibrium climate sensitivity and transient climate response, and to allow for performing time-dependent climate projections for spatial fields (e.g., surface temperature). The theory also allows to treat seamlessly the occurrence of tipping points, which can be seen a as critical transitions associated exactly with the divergence of the response operators introduced by Ruelle. I was very happy to see a manifestation of the almost-realized divergence of the Ruelle response operators in the largely amplified response of the intensity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in a state-of-the-art earth system model, which signals the proximity of the tipping point associated with the shutdown of the large-scale circulation of the Atlantic Ocean.
Q: What does your work mean to the public?
A: I strive to provide solid mathematical foundations to study the climate system in greater detail, in order to advance our understanding of its driving mechanisms; to improve our ability to predict the future and reconstruct the past by developing new theoretical tools, algorithms, and numerical models, and analyzing observational data. I think that the development of a robust and successful program for the mathematics of climate has a very positive effects for anticipating and predicting climate-related hazards and, hence, to mitigate and reduce the associated risks to human and environmental welfare. In particular, it can contribute to improving our ability to perform climate change projections, to reconstruct past climate conditions, and to enormously advance our understanding of tipping points and extreme events. This is massive effort and, of course, my work goes hand-in-hand with that of many colleagues around the world. As a side note, I am also happy to see that the scientific work I developed in my earlier scientific life of condensed matter physics is finding many applications in materials science.
Q: What does being a member of SIAM mean to you?
A: I love being a SIAM member. First and foremost, I appreciate the fact that SIAM covers an incredible range of topics dealing with mathematics and its applications, and I find extremely useful and smart that the annual assembly is accompanied by several sectoral conferences. This structure and the fact that the conferences are not in a fixed location favor a wider participation. Let me also stress that SIAM is, in my opinion, probably the most open and inclusive scientific society I have come in contact with. I especially like the great attention and autonomy given to students – the student chapters are a fantastic institution, and my own students are very active in the Reading chapter. I was also very impressed by the strong message by SIAM through President Lisa Fauci in 2018 in relation to the death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McAtee, and many others. Many scientists tend to shy away from political matters, and I know very few of them who take personal stances in difficult and divisive circumstances. Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought a scientific society would end an official press release with "Black Lives Matter." It was very inspirational.