The Norbert Wiener Prize
Principal Guideline
This prize, established in 1967, is awarded jointly by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and the American Mathematical Society (AMS). It is awarded for an outstanding contribution to applied mathematics in the highest and broadest sense.
Prize Committee
The committee is an ad hoc committee appointed jointly by the presidents of AMS and SIAM. The committee has three members, one designated as chair. Committee appointments should be made at least one year before the prize award date. The secretary of the AMS has the responsibility to notify the presidents of AMS and SIAM to make the appointments.
Committee members will be members of SIAM and/or the AMS. At least one of the members will be a SIAM member.
The committee is to report its findings at least three months before the prize award date.
The committee completes its duties with the awarding of the prize. If the committee reports that no prize can be awarded and this report is accepted by the Executive Committee of the SIAM Council and the appropriate body of the AMS, then the duties of the committee will be completed.
The committee will determine its own rules of operation.
Selection Procedures
Eligibility
The recipients of this prize must be members of AMS and/or SIAM.
Nominations
Nominees for this award with written justification should be submitted by
the prize committee to the Executive Committee of the SIAM Council and to
the appropriate body of AMS. More than one nominee may be submitted for
this award. Each of these two bodies must accept the nominations.
Objection to a nominee by either one of the two societies will nullify the
nomination. If a nominee is rejected by AMS and/or SIAM, the prize
committee may be requested to propose a second nominee. If no candidate is
found for the prize in any presentation year, the prize award date moves
forward three years.
Following approval of the nominations for the prize, the ad hoc committee for the prize will select the prize recipient from the approved list of nominees.
Prize Award Date
The prize will be given every three years.
Description of the Award
The Wiener award will be $5,000.
Prize Funds
The original funds for the Wiener prize were donated by the Mathematics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The funds are held and managed by the AMS.
Award Presentation
This award is normally presented at meetings of the AMS. From time to time the presentations can be made at a SIAM meeting. This occasion will be arranged by the SIAM Vice President for Programs, the SIAM Vice President-at-Large, their counterparts in the AMS, and the prize committee.
Announcement of the award will be in SIAM News and in other similar scientific and general periodicals.
Prize History
Previous recipients of the Norbert Wiener Prize:
- 1970 Richard Bellman
- 1975 Peter Lax
- 1980 Tosio Kato and Gerald B. Whitham
- 1985 Clifford S. Gardner
- 1990 Michael Aizenman and Jerrold E. Marsden
- 1995 Herman Flaschka and Ciprian Foias
- 2000 Alexandre J. Chorin and Arthur T. Winfree
- 2004 James A. Sethian
- 2007 Craig Tracy and Harold Widom
- 2010 David L. Donoho
- 2013 Andrew J. Majda
- 2016 Constantine M. Dafermos
The next award of the Wiener Prize will be made at the 2019 AMS Joint Mathematics Meeting.