Outstanding Research Recognized by 2008 SIAM Prizes
October 21, 2008
Established in 1993 to recognize outstanding work in differential equations and control theory, the W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize in Mathematics was awarded this year to Max Gunzburger, Frances Eppes Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and director of the School of Computational Science at Florida State University. Cited for "his fundamental contributions to the control of distributed parameter systems and computational mathematics," Gunzburger works on the development, analysis, implementation, and application of computational algorithms for the solution of problems in many application areas, including aerodynamics, materials, acoustics, climate change, groundwater, image processing, risk assessment, and superconductivity. His Reid Prize lecture was titled "Numerical Methods for Two Geophysical Flow Problems."
George P�lya, one of two famous Hungarian mathematicians commemorated by SIAM prizes, worked in such a variety of areas that the prize in his name, given every other year, alternately recognizes an outstanding application of combinatorial theory and excellence in some other area of interest to him. This was a combinatorics year, and the recipient, Van H. Vu, a professor of mathematics at Rutgers, was cited "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." Born in Hanoi, Vietnam, Vu received his undergraduate degree in Budapest and his PhD at Yale University, under the supervision of L�szl� Lov�sz (the 1979 recipient of the prize). In addition to combinatorics, Vu's research interests include probability and additive number theory.
SIAM Outstanding Paper Prizes
2008 Recipients
Vicent Caselles, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Antonin Chambolle, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS Palaiseau, France
Matteo Novaga, University of Pisa, Italy
"The Discontinuity Set of Solutions of the TV Denoising Problem and Some Extensions"
Multiscale Modeling and Simulation, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2007)
Subhash Khot, Georgia Institute of Technology
"Ruling Out PTAS for Graph Min-Bisection, Dense k-Subgraph, and Bipartite Clique"
SIAM Journal on Computing, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2006)
Todd Kapitula, Calvin College
P.G. Kevrekidis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Zhigang Chen, San Francisco State University
"Three is a Crowd: Solitary Waves in Photo-refractive Media with Three Potential Wells"
SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2006)
2007 Recipients
Benny Applebaum, Yuval Ishai, and Eyal Kushilevitz, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
"Cryptography in NC0"
SIAM Journal on Computing, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2006)
Bj�rn Sandstede, Ohio State University
Arnd Scheel, University of Minnesota
"Defects in Oscillatory Media: Toward a Classification"
SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2004)
Gabriel Robins, University of Virginia
Alexander Zelikovsky, Georgia State University
"Tighter Bounds for Graph Steiner Tree Approximation"
SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2005)
Todd Kapitula accepted a 2008 SIAM Outstanding Paper Prize for his 2006 paper in SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, with co-authors P.G. Kevrekidis and Zhigang Chen.
