2005 SIAM Annual Meeting
September 26, 2005
How can mathematicians have an impact on the major problems of a connected world--from water resource management and pollution to the economy and public health? Approaches to these complex problems, Mac Hyman said in his Past President's Address at the 2005 SIAM Annual Meeting in New Orleans, reflect major changes in applied and computational math: increasing use of multiscale approaches, the need for mathematical modelers to accompany their results with uncertainty estimates. Along with sweeping challenges, he described specific cases in which the mathematical sciences have made a difference: in restoring electric power in the Carolinas after hurricane Jeanne, in assessing the effectiveness of different vaccination strategies in simulations of a smallpox attack in Portland, Oregon.
