In Memory of David I. Gottlieb

On December 6, 2008, the worldwide community of computational mathematicians and scientists lost one of its most respected and original members when David Gottlieb, Ford Foundation Professor and Professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, passed away. He was 64. He is survived by his wife, Esty, their three children, Sigal, Zuki, and Adi, and four grandchildren. David was a central figure in the development of high-order and spectral methods for the solution of partial differential equations, with a particular interest in issues related to time-dependent problems and stability. ds, compact finite difference methods, splitting methods, shock-capturing techniques, and absorbing boundary conditions. For full obituary please click here 

Donald McClure named Executive Director of the AMS 

Donald McClure, longtime professor in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, has been named executive director of the American Mathematical Society.  McClure succeeds John H. Ewing, who has held the post for the last 13 years. In naming McClure, the AMS cited his research accomplishments, experience in both business and academic administration, and extensive knowledge of issues facing the mathematics profession.  As executive director, McClure will oversee the AMS’s 210-person staff and the organization’s operations. He also will ensure that the Society maintains its strong position as a major publisher of mathematical books and journals, including Mathematical Reviews, and maintains its roles as organizer of numerous meetings and conferences each year and as a leading provider of professional services and electronic information in the mathematical sciences. See full story.

David Gottlieb to be The John von Neumann Lecturer

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) will honor Professor David Gottlieb as The John von Neumann Lecturer for 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. Professor Gottlieb is honored for his efforts to build a community of researchers in contemporary methods for partial different equations in the fields of computational fluid dynamics, weather forecasting and computational electromagnetism. The John von Neumann Lecture is awarded annually for outstanding and distinguished contributions to the field of applied mathematical sciences and for the effective communication of these ideas to the community. (See full story)

Professor Govind Menon is receives NSF Career Award, July 2008

Professor Govind Menon receives an NSF Career Award in support of his work in the area of scaling and self-similarity in nonlinear science-education and research.  His research is to bring empirical scaling laws into rigorous mathematical analysis as they affect complex nonlinear problems, and to analyze seemingly unrelated problems within a unified framework that merges mathematical methods from partial differential equations, dynamical systems, and probability theory.  Joined to this research initiative, is an educational mission to develop undergraduate curricula that emphasize the extraction of simple quantitative answers from complex models.  Undergraduate seminars and research collaboration will be designed to increase the grasp of a unified framework between the mathematical utility of scaling analysis in the areas of biology, physical chemistry and geosciences to the fundamental understanding of the microscopic origin of universal scaling laws.

Professor David Gottlieb, Ford Foundation Professor of Applied Mathematics, May 2008

Professor David Gottlieb was elected a fellow to the the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his seminal contributions which involve constructing and applying high order accuracy methodss for the numerical solutions of partial different equations.  His work has made tremendous contributions in the areas of turbulenece calculations and meteorology. Professor Gottlieb was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. He joins 189 new Fellows and 22 Foreign Honorary Members in this year's class, which include Nobel laureates and recepients of Pulitzer and Pritzker prizes. See full story

David Mumford Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics, 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize

David Mumford has won the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics for groundbreaking theoretical work in algebraic geometry. The Wolf Prize is one of the most prestigious honors in mathematics. “David Mumford is a highly original thinker, a very distinguished member of the Brown faculty, and an extremely influential member of the scientific community worldwide,” said Brown Provost David Kertzer. “This award is testament to his wide-ranging intelligence and the tremendous impact of his work.” Professor Mumford shares the 2008 mathematics prize with Pierre Deligne and Phillip Griffiths of Princeton University. According to the Wolf Foundation, Mumford is being recognized for his “work on algebraic surfaces; on geometric invariant theory; and for laying the foundations of the modern algebraic theory of moduli of curves and theta functions.”  (Reprinted from Brown Media Relations)

The 2007 Computational Fluid Dynamics Award

The U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM), confers its 2007 Computational Fluid Dynamics Award to George Em Karniadakis, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, for his “pioneering work in computational fluid dynamics, particularly spectral hp finite elements, discontinuous Galerkin methods and microfluidics.”  Among Professor Karniadakis’ research accomplishments are many firsts:  These include the  first DNS and LES of turbulence in complex geometries, the first theoretical/numerical work on gas micro-flows,  the first spectral element simulations of 3-D compressible/supersonic flows, and the first arterial tree simulation on the Teragird.  The USACM Fluid Dynamics Award  is granted in recognition of outstanding and sustained contributions to the broad field of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which have significantly advanced the understanding of theories and methods impacting CFD. 

David Gottlieb, Elected to National Academy of Sciences, 2007

David Gottlieb, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, has been elected  to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors accorded to a scientist or engineer. Professor Gottlieb, who studies numerical analysis and methods for solving partial differential equations, is one of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates elected this year in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.   His research involves constructing and applying high-order accuracy methods for the numerical solutions of partial differential equations. Professor Gottlieb chaired the Department of Applied Mathematics at Tel Aviv University before coming to Brown, where he has supervised almost 20 Ph.D. students and built a world-renowned research group studying numerical analysis and scientific computing.

Chi-Wang Shu, SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering, 2007

Dr. Chi-Wang Shu, Professor Applied Mathematics, received the SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering.  He was awarded this prize, “for the development of numerical methods that have had a great impact on scientific computing, including TVD temporal discretization, ENO and WENO finite difference schemes, discontinuous Galerkin methods, and spectral methods."  Shu initialized the development of a class of nonlinearly stable high order time discretization, termed TVD (total variation diminishing) time discretization, suitable for convection dominated partial differential equations. Shu is one of the original designers of the nonlinearly stable ENO (essentially non-oscillatory) and WENO (weighted ENO) finite difference and finite volume schemes, which are widely used to solve problems with strong shocks and can maintain uniformly high order accuracy. Shu is also one of the original developers of the RKDG (Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin) finite element method, which are widely used to solve convection dominated partial differential equations. (February 2007).

David Mumford, 2007 AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition

Presented annually by the American Mathematical Society, the Steele Prize is one of the highest distinctions in mathematics. The prize was awarded to Professor David Mumford on Saturday, January 6, 2007, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans, Louisiana. The prize citation honors Mumford for "his beautiful expository accounts of a host of aspects of algebraic geometry".  Among the works mentioned in the prize citation is: The Red Book of Varieties and Schemes (Springer, 1988). In his response upon receiving the prize, Mumford recalled that some of his drawings from The Red Book were included in a collection called Five Centuries of French Mathematics. This seemed fitting, he noted:  "After all, it was the French who started impressionist painting and isn't this just an impressionist scheme for rendering geometry?"  The prize citation states that,"the classical theory is beautifully intertwined with the modern theory, in a way which sharply illuminates both."  Press Release from the AMS, January 8, 2007.