2008 Prizes and Awards Luncheon
SIAM Annual Meeting
July 8, 2008

Prizes, awards, and special lectures are shown in alphabetical order.

I. E. Block Community Lecture

The I. E. Block Community Lecture was instituted in 1995 to encourage public appreciation of the excitement and vitality of applied mathematics by reaching out as broadly as possible to students, teachers, and members of the local community, as well as to SIAM members, researchers, and practitioners in fields related to applied and computational mathematics.  The lecture is open to the public and is named in honor of I. Edward Block, a founder of SIAM who served as its Managing Director for nearly 20 years.

2008 Lecturer:     Daniel Rockmore
                          Dartmouth College

Title of Lecture:  Stylish Mathematics
                          Wednesday, July 9, 6:15 - 7:15 p.m.
                         Town & Country Ballroom

"Mind in the Machine: The Discovery of Artificial Intelligence," a film by Wendy Conquest, Bob Drake, and Dan Rockmore will be shown following the I. E. Block Community Lecture and on Thursday, July 10, at 12:45 p.m.

Daniel Rockmore is John G. Kemeny Parents Professor of Mathematics and Chair of the Department of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, where he is also Professor of Computer Science, a member of the MD/PhD Faculty, and on the faculty of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.  Before he started at Dartmouth College in 1991, he was assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University.  Since 2000, he has been on the external faculty of the Santa Fe Institute and has been Director since 2005.  He received his AB in Mathematics from Princeton University and an MA and PhD in Mathematics from Harvard University.  His research interests include representation theory, fast transforms, group theoretic transforms, dynamical systems, digital processing, and data analysis.

Previous Lecturers:  

*The I. E. Block Lecture (Phillip A. Griffiths and William F. Ballhaus, Jr.) was merged with the Community Lecture (Charles Van Loan and Brian Rosen) in 1997.

The I. E. Block Community Lecturer receives a $1,500 honorarium and an engraved clock.

 

Richard C. DiPrima Prize

Established in 1986, the prize is awarded to a junior scientist who has done outstanding research in applied mathematics (defined as those topics covered by SIAM journals) and who has completed his/her doctoral dissertation and completed all other requirements for his/her doctorate during the period running from three years prior to the award date to one year prior to the award date.

The prize, proposed by the late Gene H. Golub during his term as SIAM President, is funded by contributions from students, friends, colleagues, and family of the late Richard C. DiPrima, former SIAM President.

2008 Recipient:             Daan Huybrechs
                                    Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

                     Currently: Postdoctoral Fellow
                                    Department of Computer Science
                                    Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Citation: For his dissertation, “Multiscale and Hybrid Methods for the Solution of Oscillatory Integral Equations," that develops new solution methods motivated and justified by a deep understanding of the underlying theory, evaluates these methods numerically, and shows how they can be applied to problems in engineering."

Daan Huybrechs is currently a postdoctoral fellow of the National Fund for Scientific Research  of Belgium (FWO-Flanders) at the Department of Computer Science at K. U. Leuven, Belgium, where he is a member of the Scientific Computing research group.  He received both his Masters degree (2002) and his PhD (2006) in Engineering Sciences from K. U. Leuven, where his supervisor was Stefan Vandewalle.  In 2007, he participated in the HOP program on highly oscillatory problems organized by the Isaac Newton Institute at the University of Cambridge, UK.  His research interests are in oscillatory integrals and integral equations, with an emphasis on wave problems from acoustics and electromagnetics.

Previous Recipients: 

There was no award given in 1990.

The recipient of the Richard C. DiPrima Prize receives $1,000 and a framed, hand-calligraphed certificate.

 

AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture

Established in 2002, this lecture is given annually at the SIAM Annual Meeting.  The lecture is intended to highlight significant contributions of women to applied or computational mathematics.

2008 Lecturer:    Dianne O'Leary
                           University of Maryland

Title of Lecture:  A Noisy Adiabatic Theorem: Wilkinson Meets Schrödinger's Cat
                           Monday, July 7, 3:00 - 3:30 p.m.
                           Town & Country Ballroom

Citation: In recognition of her significant research in computational linear algebra and optimization, subjects at the interface between computer science and mathematics.  Her work includes numerous articles in diverse areas, such as conjugate gradient methods and preconditioners, regularization, image processing, truncated Newton methods, block conjugate gradient and quasi-Newton methods, linear and quadratic programming, and hidden Markov models.  Applications of her core research work include information retrieval, computational biology, and quantum computing.

Dianne O'Leary is a Professor in the Computer Science Department and at the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland.  She received her BS in Mathematics from Purdue University and her PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University.  She began her academic career in the Mathematics Department at the University of Michigan before moving to the University of Maryland, where she has been in the Computer Science Department for thirty years.  She has also served as a consultant at the National Institute of Standards and Technology since 1978.  She is a Fellow of the ACM and received an honorary doctorate in mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 2005.  O'Leary has served on several editorial boards and will begin her term as Editor-in-Chief of the SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications in 2009.

Previous Lecturers:  

The AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecturer receives a certificate signed by the Presidents of AWM and SIAM.

 

George Pólya Prize

The George Pólya Prize, established in 1969, is given every two years, alternately in two categories: (1) for a notable application of combinatorial theory; (2) for a notable contribution in another area of interest to George Pólya such as approximation theory, complex analysis, number theory, orthogonal polynomials, probability theory, or mathematical discovery and learning.
In 2008, the George Pólya Prize is given for a notable application of combinatorial theory.

2008 Recipient:     Van H. Vu
                             Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Citation: For developing fundamental concentration inequalities for random polynomials that are applicable to broader contexts than earlier inequalities, applying when the average rather than the maximum effect of terms is small.  These inequalities have enabled the solution of long-standing problems in projective geometry, convex geometry, extremal graph theory, number theory, and theoretical computer science; they constitute one of the most important contributions to probabilistic combinatorics in the past ten years.

Van H. Vu was born in Hanoi, Vietnam.  He received his undergraduate degree at Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary, in 1994, and his PhD in Mathematics at Yale University in 1998 under the direction of László Lovász.  After postdoc years at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and Microsoft Research, he spent the years 2001-2005 at the University of California at San Diego, as assistant, associate and full professor.  Since Fall 2005, he has been a professor in the Mathematics Department at Rutgers.  He was also a visiting professor at University Paris 6 in 2006.  His research interests include combinatorics, probability, and additive number theory.  He has received a Sloan Dissertation Fellowship (1997), a Sloan Research Fellowship (2002), and a NSF Career Award (2003).  He has been a member of IAS in 1998, 2005, and 2007, the last time as leader of a special program, "Arithmetic Combinatorics."

Previous Recipients: 

The recipients of the Polya Prize receive a $20,000 cash award and engraved medals.

 

W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize

The W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize in Mathematics was established by SIAM in 1993 to recognize outstanding work in, or other contributions to, the broadly defined areas of differential equations and control theory.  The prize, given annually, may be awarded either for a single notable achievement or a collection of such achievements.  The prize fund was endowed by the late
Mrs. Idalia Reid to honor her husband.

2008 Recipient:  Max Gunzburger
                           Florida State University

Title of Lecture:  Numerical Methods for Two Geophysical Flow Problems
                           Wednesday, July 9, 3:00 - 3:30 p.m.
                           Town & Country Ballroom

Citation:  For his fundamental contributions to control of distributed parameter systems and computational mathematics.

Max Gunzburger is a Francis Eppes Professor and Director of the School of Computational Science at Florida State University.  Gunzburger came to FSU in 2002 from Iowa State University where he served as distinguished professor and chair of the mathematics department.  Before Iowa State, Gunzburger was on the faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Carnegie Mellon University; and the University of Tennessee.  He began his career as a research scientist and assistant professor at New York University and followed that with research positions at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering.  His research involves developing , analyzing, implementing and applying computational algorithms to help engineers and scientists solve problems in areas including aerodynamics, materials, acoustics, climate change, groundwater, image processing, risk assessment and superconductivity.

Previous Recipients: 

Please note: The Reid Prize was awarded every other year until 2000.

The W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize Lecturer receives a cash award of $10,000 and an engraved medal.

 

SIAM Award in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling

The SIAM Award in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM), established in 1988, is awarded to two of the teams judged “Outstanding” in the annual MCM.  One winning team of students is chosen for each of the problems posed in the MCM.

Papers to be presented in a session of Student Days, Wednesday, July 9, from 10:30 - 12:30 a.m. in Royal Palm 6.  For program, see next page.

2007 Recipients: Problem A, The Continuous Problem: “Gerrymandering”
                           Solution:  "Electoral Redistricting with Moment of Inertia and Diminishing
                           Halves Models”
                           Massachusetts Institute of Technology
                           Department of Mathematics
                           Cambridge, MA

                           Students:  Daniel Gulotta, Daniel Kane, Andrew Spann
                           Faculty Advisor:  Professor  Martin Z. Bazant

                           Problem B, The Discrete Problem: “The Airplane Seating Problem”
                           Solution:  "Boarding - Step by Step: A Cellular Automaton Approach to Optimizing Aircraft Boarding Time"
                           University of Stellenbosch
                           Department of Mathematical Sciences
                           Republic of South Africa

                           Students:  Andreas Hafver, Chris Rohwer, Louise Viljoen
                           Faculty Advisor:  Professor Jan H. van Vuuren

 

2008 Recipients: Problem A, The Continuous Problem: “Take a Bath”
                           Solution:  "Fighting the Waves: The Effect of North Polar Ice Cap Melt on Florida”
                           The State University of New York, The University at Buffalo
                           Department of Mathematics
                           Buffalo, NY

                           Students:  Amy M. Evans, Tracy L. Stepien
                           Faculty Advisor:  Professor John Ringland

                           Problem B, The Discrete Problem: “Creating Sudoku Puzzles”
                           Solution:  "hsolve: A Difficulty Metric and Puzzle Generator for Sudoku"
                           Harvard University
                           Department of Mathematics
                           Cambridge, MA
                          
                           Students:  Christopher Chang, Zhou Fan, Yi Sun
                           Faculty Advisor:  Professor Clifford H. Taubes

Student recipients each receive $800 (prize and travel), complimentary membership in SIAM for three years, and a framed, hand-calligraphed certificate for the students’ schools.

 

STUDENT PRIZE PRESENTATIONS
Wednesday, July 9
Royal Palm 6

PROGRAM

SIAM/Mathematical Contest in Modeling Award Presentations
10:30 AM - 12:30  PM   Royal Palm 6
Chair:  James H. Case, Writer/Consultant

10:30-10:55  Electoral Redistricting with Moment of Inertia and Diminishing Halves Models
           Daniel Gulotta, Daniel Kane, Andrew Spann, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

11:00-11:25  Boarding - Step by Step: A Cellular Automaton Approach to Optimizing Aircraft Boarding Time
           Andreas Hafver, Chris Rohwer, Louise Viljoen, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

11:30-11:55  Fighting the Waves: The Effect of North Polar Ice Cap Melt on Florida
           Amy M. Evans, Tracy L. Stepien, The State University of New York, University at Buffalo

12:00-12:25  hsolve: A Difficulty Metric and Puzzle Generator for Sudoku
           Christopher Chang, Zhou Fan, Yi Sun, Harvard University

 

SIAM Student Paper Prize Presentations
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM   Royal Palm 6
Chair:  William L. Briggs, University of Colorado at Denver

4:00-4:25  An H1(Ph)-Coercive Discontinuous Galerkin Formulation for the Poisson Problem: 1-D Analysis
           Kristoffer G. van der Zee, E. H. van Brummelen, and R. de Borst, Delft University of
           Technology, Netherlands

4:30-4:55  A Level-Set Method for Computing the Eigenvalues of Elliptic Operators Defined on Closed Surfaces
           Jeremy Brandman, University of California at Los Angeles

5:00-5:25  An Asymptotic Factorization Method for Inverse Electromagnetic Scattering in Layered Media
           Roland Griesmaier, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany

5:30-5:55  Highly Efficient Strong Stability Preserving Runge-Kutta Methods with Low-Storage Implementations
           David Ketcheson, University of Washington

Italics indicate presenting authors.

 

SIAM Student Paper Prizes

The SIAM Student Paper Prizes are awarded every year to the student author(s) of the most outstanding paper(s) submitted to the SIAM Student Paper Competition. These awards are based solely on the merit and content of the students’ contribution to the submitted papers. The purpose of the SIAM Student Paper Prizes is to recognize outstanding scholarship by students in applied mathematics or computing.

Papers to be presented in a session of Student Days, Wednesday, July 9, from 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. in Royal Palm 6.  For program, see preceding page.

2007 Recipients: Thomas T. Bringley
                           Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University

                           Title:  "Validation of a Simple Method for Representing Spheres and Slender Bodies in an Immersed Boundary Method for Stokes Flow on an Unbounded Domain"
                           Co-Author:  Charles S. Peskin, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences,
                           New York University

                           Nir Gavish
                           Tel Aviv University

                           Title:  "Singular Ring Solutions of Critical and Supercritical Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations"
                           Co-Authors:  Gadi Fibich, Tel Aviv University, and Xiao-Ping Wang, Hong
                           Kong University of Science and Technology

                           Kristoffer G. van der Zee
                           Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

                           Title: "An H1(Ph)-Coercive Discontinuous Galerkin Formulation for the Poisson Problem:  1-D Analysis"
                           Co-Authors:  E. H. van Brummelen and R. de Borst, Delft University of
                           Technology, The Netherlands

2008 Recipients: Jeremy Brandman
                           University of California at Los Angeles

                           Title:  "A Level-Set Method for Computing the Eigenvalues of Elliptic Operators Defined on Closed Surfaces"

                           Roland Griesmaier
                           Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany

                           Title:  "An Asymptotic Factorization Method for Inverse Electromagnetic Scattering in Layered Media"

                           David Ketcheson
                           University of Washington

                           Title: "Highly Efficient Strong Stability Preserving Runge-Kutta Methods with Low Storage Implementations"

 

SIAM Outstanding Paper Prizes

The prizes, first awarded in 1999, are given for outstanding papers published in SIAM journals during the three years prior to the year of the award.  Papers are selected for their originality:  they bring a fresh look at an existing field or open up new areas of applied mathematics.

2008 Recipients: “The Discontinuity Set of Solutions of the TV Denoising Problem and Some Extensions"
                           Multiscale Modeling and Simulation, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2007)

                           Authors:  Vicent Caselles
                                          Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

                                          Antonin Chambolle
                                          Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS Palaiseau, France

                                          Matteo Novaga
                                          University of Pisa, Italy

                           “Ruling Out PTAS for Graph Min-Bisection, Dense k-Subgraph, and Bipartite Clique
                           SIAM Journal on Computing, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2006)

                           Author:   Subhash Khot
                                          Georgia Institute of Technology

                           “Three is a Crowd: Solitary Waves in Photorefractive Media with Three Potential Wells"
                           SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, Volume 5, No. 4 (2006)

                           Authors:  Todd Kapitula
                                          Calvin College; formerly University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

                                          P. G. Kevrekidis
                                          University of Massachusetts, Amherst

                                          Zhigang Chen
                                          San Francisco State University

2007 Recipients: “Cryptography in NC0"
                           SIAM Journal on Computing, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2006)

                           Authors:  Benny Applebaum
                                          Yuval Ishai
                                          Eyal Kushilevitz
                                          Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

                           “Defects in Oscillatory Media: Toward a Classification"
                           SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2004)

                           Authors:  Björn Sandstede
                                          The Ohio State University

                                          Arnd Scheel
                                          University of Minnesota

                           “Tighter Bounds for Graph Steiner Tree Approximation"
                           SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2005)

                           Authors:  Gabriel Robins
                                          University of Virginia

                                          Alexander Zelikovsky
                                          Georgia State University

Recipients of the SIAM Outstanding Paper Prizes receive a cash prize of $500.

 

SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession

The prize, established in 1985, is in the form of a certificate to be awarded every year at the SIAM Annual Meeting.  It is awarded to an applied mathematician who has made distinguished contributions to the furtherance of applied mathematics on the national level.

2008 Recipient:  Philippe Tondeur
                           University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Citation:  In recognition of his extensive and highly effective advocacy and support for the mathematical sciences.  His creative and dedicated leadership of the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation, including the initiation of the Mathematical Sciences Priority Area and numerous partnerships that reinforce the centrality of mathematics, has  left an impact that will continue to benefit the discipline for decades.  Both at NSF and afterwards, through governance and advisory activities, he has supported the flourishing of mathematical science research institutes worldwide.  His effective communication of a vision of contemporary mathematical research and its role in science and technology continues to influence policy makers at many levels.

Philippe Tondeur is a consultant for mathematics, science and technology.  His current interests include mathematics research and education; the enabling role of mathematics in science and engineering; innovation policy; institutional governance; and leadership development.  He retired a few years ago as Director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation.  Previously, he served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).  He is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at UIUC.  He earned an Engineering degree in Zurich and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Zurich.  Subsequently, he was a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Paris, at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and an Associate Professor at Wesleyan University, before joining the UIUC faculty in 1968, where he became a Full Professor in 1970.  He is currently a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the MITACS Centre of Excellence and a Trustee of the Istituto Madrileno de Estudios Avanzadas-MATH in Madrid.  He is a member of the SIAM Committee on Science Policy, as well as of the Science Policy Committee and other committees of MAA.

Previous Recipients: 

Note: The SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession, previously awarded from time to time, became an annual prize in 2003. No award was made in 2007.

The recipient of the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession receives a framed, hand-calligraphed certificate.

 

The John von Neumann Lecture

Established in 1959, this prize is in the form of an honorarium for an invited lecture.  The lecturer will survey and evaluate a significant and useful contribution to mathematics and its applications.  It may be awarded to a mathematician or to a scientist in another field, but, in either case, the recipient should be one who has made distinguished contributions to pure and/or applied mathematics.

2008 Lecturer:    David Gottlieb
                           Brown University

Title of Lecture:  The Effect of Local Features on Global Expansions
                           Tuesday, July 8, 2:30 - 3:30 p.m.
                           Town & Country Ballroom

Citation: In recognition of his work on spectral and high-order accurate numerical methods for partial differential equations and the applications of these methods to significant problems in science and engineering, including computational fluid dynamics, weather forecasting, and computational electromagnetism.  He is also being recognized for his central role in building a community of researchers in contemporary computational methods for partial differential equations.

David Gottlieb has been Ford Foundation Professor since 1993 in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, which he joined as professor in 1985.  He served as Chair of the Division of Applied Mathematics from 1996 through 1999.  Gottlieb earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees and his PhD in Applied Mathematics at Tel Aviv University (under Saul Abarbanel.).  After three years as an instructor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at MIT and a year as research scientist at ICASE, NASA Langley Research Center, he returned to Tel Aviv University in 1976 as senior lecturer in the Department of Applied Mathematics.  As professor, since 1982, he served as chair of that department from 1983 through 1985, all the while keeping close ties with ICASE.  His research interests include the theory and applications of spectral and high order accuracy methods as well as statistical methods to model phenomena that cannot be resolved by current techniques.  Gottlieb is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences.

Previous von Neumann Lecturers:

No awards were made in 1972 and 1973.

The John von Neumann Lecturer receives an honorarium of $4,000 and a framed, hand-calligraphed certificate.

 

The following prizes will be awarded at the 2009 SIAM Annual Meeting:

I. E. Block Community Lecture
Ralph E. Kleinman Prize *
AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture
W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize *
SIAM Award in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM)
SIAM Outstanding Paper Prizes
SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession
SIAM Student Paper Prizes *
Theodore von Karman Prize *
James A. Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing *
The John von Neumann Lecture

The following prizes will be awarded at other societies' conferences in 2009:

Germund Dahlquist Prize *
George B. Dantzig Prize *
Lagrange Prize in Continuous Optimization *
George David Birkhoff Prize
Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research by an Undergraduate Student
JPBM Communications Award

The following prizes will be awarded at SIAG conferences in 2009:

SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering *
        awarded jointly with ACM at CSE09
J.  D. Crawford Prize (SIAG/DS) *
Jürgen Moser Lecture (SIAG/DS) *
SIAM Activity Group on Control and Systems Theory Prize *
SIAG/CST Best SICON Paper Prize *
SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra Prize *
SIAG Activity Group on Analysis of PDE Prize *

*  Calls for Nominations for these prizes will be posted at the SIAM website and published in electronic newsletters as they become available.  www.siam.org/prizes/nominations.php

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