Introducing SIAM’s Incoming Leadership

By Lina Sorg

At the end of 2021, SIAM members voted to select the society’s newest leadership. SIAM is pleased to announce the incoming President-Elect and Vice President-at-Large, returning Secretary, and new and returning members of the Board of Trustees and Council.

The President-Elect joins the SIAM cabinet in 2022 and will serve as President from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024. The Vice President-at-Large and Secretary began their first and second respective terms on January 1 and will remain in office until December 31, 2023. Members of the Board of Trustees and Council will retain their positions until December 31, 2024.

Here, the 2022 leadership—all of whom have remained highly involved with the SIAM community over the years—share their reactions, passions, and goals for their time in office. Their initial candidate statements are available online.

President-Elect

Sven Leyffer (Argonne National Laboratory): “I am honored and excited to serve the SIAM community as its next president. As we move beyond the pandemic, I look forward to enhancing our diverse, exciting, and vibrant conferences and broadening access to in-person meetings with new virtual opportunities. I am excited about new initiatives that strengthen the presence of industry in SIAM, cementing our unique role as a bridge between industry and academia. I will also work with SIAM leadership to nurture SIAM’s dedication to principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion that better us all.”

Vice President-at-Large

Gitta Kutyniok (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich): “I feel truly honored to be elected as Vice President-at-Large and am very much looking forward to serving SIAM in this role. One of my main goals is to pave the way for SIAM to meet current and future challenges. Such challenges include the rapidly growing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on various areas of industrial and applied mathematics, and the recognition of mathematics’ role in the field of AI. Of particular importance to me is also ensuring the continuous growth of our activity groups and sections on an international scale, strengthening their roles as vibrant research communities, and enlarging our prize and Fellows programs to support top researchers in their careers and showcase research highlights beyond our community.”

Secretary

Susan E. Minkoff (University of Texas at Dallas): “I am honored to serve a second term as SIAM Secretary. Ensuring that the many SIAM committees are well manned (and womanned) is a big responsibility, but hard-working vice presidents, committee chairs, and my colleagues on the Committee on Committees and Appointments (CCA)—as well as the many SIAM volunteers who are willing to serve on these committees—make it a rewarding task. I invite SIAM members who are interested in serving on SIAM committees to reach out to myself, other officers, or members of the CCA to volunteer in this way.”

SIAM Board of Trustees

Alison Ramage (University of Strathclyde): “I am delighted to have been re-elected to the SIAM Board and am very grateful to the membership for their support. SIAM staff have done a fantastic job of adapting to the enormous challenges of the last few years, and I look forward to working with them again as we move ahead with exciting new initiatives in areas like hybrid conferences and international outreach.”

Beatrice Riviere (Rice University): “It is a true honor to serve on the SIAM Board of Trustees. SIAM’s platform provides wonderful support for collaboration between scientists from academia, industry, and government laboratories. As the community continues to experience a long-term global pandemic, SIAM’s impact is more important than ever. I will work to ensure that SIAM increases the diversity of its members, strengthens the involvement of industry and government labs with its activities, and ultimately remains a dynamic and inclusive community.”

Chi-Wang Shu (Brown University): “I am honored to serve on the SIAM Board of Trustees. SIAM is unique in its position as a vehicle to facilitate the exchange of ideas and promote major research directions in mathematics that members can use in application fields. The power of mathematics in guiding and improving modeling, analysis, and computation in science and engineering cannot be overemphasized. In return, scientific applications can provide important insights into the kind of mathematics that is desired and facilitates breakthroughs in applications. I look forward to contributing to the further promotion of SIAM as a platform that fosters collaborations between applied mathematicians and scientists in other disciplines.”

SIAM Council

Natalia Alexandrov (NASA Langley Research Center): “It is a great honor to continue serving the SIAM community as a member of the SIAM Council. During my second term, I will focus my efforts in two directions: (i) expanding student awareness of important problems in the area of increasingly widespread autonomous systems that are governed by software, and (ii) strengthening interdisciplinary connections between SIAM and engineering societies like the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Both efforts bring much-needed mathematical attention to critical, interdisciplinary problems of today and tomorrow.”

Inga Berre (University of Bergen): “Understanding gained through the application of mathematics and computational science is becoming ever more important. I am honored and delighted to support this development as a member of the SIAM Council. I look forward to engaging in further advancement of our platforms for research communication and dissemination. An important area for me is the way in which we provide value to an increasingly diverse group of SIAM members, with emphasis on students and early-career researchers.”

Evelyn Sander (George Mason University): “I am excited to serve on the SIAM Council and extremely honored by the trust that members have placed in me. My primary focus for the Council is on making changes within SIAM that are designed to increase representation and inclusion in applied mathematics. Careful work within the Society can have a large impact for groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the field of mathematics. Another key item is the future of conferences; SIAM has an opportunity to lead the way in balancing the burden of travel with the value of in-person interactions.”

Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb (University of Cambridge): “I am excited and honored to serve on the SIAM Council. I strongly support the development of mathematics in close collaboration with application experts and the promotion of mathematics through its important applications. Therefore, I am fond of the SIAM philosophy of communication with researchers in other disciplines and the value of interdisciplinary research. I aim to continue the excellent work of the current leadership, with my heart invested in showcasing the highlights of our research, encouraging early-career researchers, improving diversity in mathematics, and fostering dialogue and idea exchange within our mathematical community.”

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The dedication of SIAM’s elected members contributes to the Society’s forward-moving progress and continued achievements. SIAM offers a heartfelt “thank you” to the entire slate of outstanding candidates for their willingness to serve the SIAM community, and to the SIAM members who cast their votes in last year’s election.

Lina Sorg is the managing editor of SIAM News.