A.B.J. Kuijlaars Receives 1998 Popov Prize

May 14, 1998

A.B.J. Kuijlaars, a faculty member at the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium, was awarded the 1998 Popov Prize for outstanding research in approximation theory at the 1998 Texas Conference on Approximation Theory, which was held in January, in Nashville, Tennessee. Kuijlaars, who recently moved to KU from the City University of Hong Kong, is the second recipient of the prize, which was created in memory of Vasil Popov and his many contributions to approximation theory, and was first awarded to Albert Cohen in 1995.

Kuijlaars was cited for his innovative work on Chebyshev quadrature problems for the sphere in arbitrary dimensions, his solutions of several difficult problems posed by V. Totik concerning approximation by polynomials with varying weights, and for his contributions to the asymptotic theory for minimum energy-point arrangements on the sphere. He completed his undergraduate studies in mathematics at the Technical University in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and his graduate work in 1991 at the University of Utrecht, under the direction of Emile Bertin.

Following graduate school, Kuijlaars completed postdoctoral work at the University of Amsterdam, where he worked closely with Korevaar. He then spent a year in the U.S., working with Ed Saff (University of South Florida), who presented the prize on behalf of the selection committee, and Walter Gautschi (Purdue University). He also completed a fellowship year working with Walter Van Assche at KU.

Other members of the selection committee included Ronald DeVore, Pencho Petrushev, Paul Nevai, Charles Chui, and Allan Pinkus. The prize, which is awarded to young mathematicians who received their doctorates within six years of the award date, will next be awarded in 2001.

Contributions to the prize fund can be made to Ronald DeVore, Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208.

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