By Tim Fest
2019 was a banner year for SIAM Membership, which welcomed more than 1,450 nonstudent members to SIAM’s global community of applied mathematicians and computational scientists. This growth raised our nonstudent membership total to a new high of 8,545 members, and set first-time records for early career members (450 new members for a total of 1,330) and members from countries that qualify for Outreach Membership (401 new members for a total of 952).
New members strengthen and expand the SIAM community by bringing novel perspectives, experiences, and insights. Their effect on the society is cumulative, and the impact of additional members is far greater than just the sum of its parts.
Breakdown of the more than 1,450 new nonstudent members that joined SIAM in 2019, which brought nonstudent membership to a record high of 8,545. Figure courtesy of Tim Fest.
SIAM has been growing in other ways as well. The addition of the new SIAM Activity Group on Applied and Computational Discrete Algorithms (SIAG/ACDA) brings the total count of activity groups to 22. Furthermore, SIAM has embraced data science with the new SIAM Journal on Mathematics of Data Science (SIMODS) and the SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science (MDS20). The first iteration of the latter is co-located with the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM20) in Cincinnati, Ohio this May. Both SIMODS and MDS20 are worthwhile expansions into this cutting-edge field that has seen unprecedented progress over the last decade.
SIAM has also expanded and improved its relationships with peer societies through reciprocal agreements. Members of the János Bolyai Mathematical Society in Hungary and the Unione Matematica Italiana in Italy can now join SIAM at a 30 percent discount. We have also added a new North American reciprocal society: the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM). NAM is a professional association for mathematicians in the U.S., especially African Americans and other minorities.
We continue to seek ways to break down barriers so our members can engage across borders, disciplines, and career levels, and we’re looking forward to announcing several big projects in 2020 to keep the momentum going. But the most important factor in SIAM’s membership growth is the members who are reading this article today. Without your continued patronage by renewing your membership; volunteering on committees; running for elected office; serving as editors for—and reading and submitting to—SIAM journals; supporting SIAM conferences by organizing, attending, or submitting content; and recommending SIAM to friends, colleagues, and students, SIAM would not be the healthy, robust organization that it is today.
Tim Fest is SIAM’s Membership Manager and a Certified Association Executive.