Oxford Mathematicians Alain Goriely and Mike Giles have been made Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). Alain is recognised for his "contributions to nonlinear elasticity and theories of biological growth" while Mike receives his Fellowship for his "contributions to numerical analysis and scientific computing, particularly concerning adjoint methods, stochastic simulation, and Multilevel Monte Carlo."
Alain is Professor of Mathematical Modelling in the University of Oxford where he is Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (OCIAM) and Co-Director of the International Brain Mechanics and Trauma Lab (IBMTL). He is an applied mathematician with broad interests in mathematics, mechanics, sciences, and engineering. His current research also include the modelling of new photovoltaic devices, the modelling of cancer and the mechanics of the human brain. He is author of the recently published Applied Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction. Alain is also the founder of the successful Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture series. You can watch his recent Public Lecture, 'Can Mathematics Understand the Brain' here.
Mike is Professor of Scientific Computing in the University of Oxford. After working at MIT and the Oxford University Computing Laboratory on computational fluid dynamics applied to the analysis and design of gas turbines, he moved into computational finance and research on Monte Carlo methods for a variety of applications. His research focuses on improving the accuracy, efficiency and analysis of Monte Carlo methods. He is also interested in various aspects of scientific computing, including high performance parallel computing and has been working on the exploitation of GPUs (graphics processors) for a variety of financial, scientific and engineering applications.
Oxford Mathematician John Ball has won the European Academy of Sciences Leonardo da Vinci award. The award is given annually for outstanding lifetime scientific achievement. In the words of the Committee, "through a research career spanning more than 45 years, Professor Ball has made groundbreaking and highly significant contributions to the mathematical theory of elasticity, the calculus of variations, and the mathematical analysis of infinite-dimensional dynamical systems."
Sir John Ball FRS is Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Centre for Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations. He is a Fellow of The Queen's College.
Oxford Mathematician Robin Wilson has been awarded the 2017 Stanton Medal. The medal is awarded every two years by the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) for outreach activities in combinatorial mathematics.
In the words of the ICA citation, "Robin Wilson has, for fifty years, been an outstanding ambassador for graph theory to the general public. He has lectured widely (giving some 1500 public lectures), and extended the reach of his lectures through television, radio, and videotape. He has also published extensively on combinatorial ideas, written in a style that is engaging and accessible. He has provided direction, encouragement, and support to colleagues and students at all levels. His superb talents at conveying the beauty of graph-theoretic ideas, and inviting his readers and listeners to join in, have enthused many students, teachers, and researchers. Professor Wilson’s advocacy and outreach for combinatorics continue to yield many positive impacts that are enjoyed by researchers and non-specialists alike."
Robin Wilson is an Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University, Emeritus Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, and a former Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. He is the author of many books including 'Combinatorics: A Very Short Introduction', 'Four Colours Suffice: How the Map Problem Was Solved,' 'Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical Logical Life' and his textbook ‘Introduction to Graph Theory.’ His latest Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture on Euler's pioneering equation can be watched here.
Prof. Ursula Martin and Dr Ian Griffiths have each been awarded an MPLS Impact Award for 2017-18. The MPLS (Mathematical, Physical, Engineering and Life Sciences Division at the University of Oxford) Impact Awards scheme aims to foster and raise awareness of impact by rewarding it at a local level.
Ursula's award is for Public Engagement in connection with the 2015 celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Ada Lovelace's birth. This included exhibits at many museums (including the National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park, the Science Museum and the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley) as well as an issue of a children's computing magazine developed in collaboration with QMUL (Queen Mary University of London) and distributed to UK schools to encourage programming.
Ian's award is for Non-Commercial Impact, and is in recognition of his work with researchers at IIT Kharagpur on the modelling and improvement of filters to remove arsenic from water supplies in India. This work is funded by GCRF (the UK Global Challenge Research Fund) and also supported by UNICEF which is now installing community-scale filters in India. Although it falls outside the definition of the category, Ian is also working with three companies (Dyson, Gore and Pall Corporation) to improve their filters for various purposes.
These awards, which include a £1000 payment, will be presented at the MPLS Winter Reception on February 6th.
Oxford Mathematician Sarah Waters has been awarded a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship commencing this month. Sarah is an applied mathematician here in Oxford. Her interest is in physiological fluid mechanics, tissue biomechanics and the application of mathematics to problems in medicine and biology. Her work varies from classical applied mathematics problems motivated by physiological applications to highly interdisciplinary work - she collaborates with life scientists, clinicians, bioengineers, theoreticians and experimentalists to develop and solve models that are novel, realistic and provide insights into biomedical problems. The resulting models often lead to theoretical predictions that can be exploited in the laboratory.
Oxford Mathematician James Maynard has been appointed Research Professor and receives a Wolfson Merit Award from the Royal Society. The Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award is a prestigious award intended to attract or retain respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential.
Professor Maynard's project, 'Structure in the primes, with applications', aims to develop techniques to understand the statistical properties of the distribution of prime numbers - a central problem in number theory. The project consists of three large projects to be investigated over a five-year period. The projects follow the common theme of studying classical problems in analytic number theory by attempting to classify counter-examples, should they exist. This approach has been remarkably successful in analytic arguments, and is an example of a common connection between analysis, combinatorics and algebra. The underlying techniques also provide flexible and universal means of answering rigorously many real-world questions about primes.
James Maynard is one of the brightest young stars in world mathematics at the moment, having made dramatic advances in analytic number theory in the years immediately following his 2013 doctorate. These advances have brought him worldwide attention in mathematics and beyond. Just 30, he has already gained many markers of distinction, including the European Mathematical Society Prize, the Ramanujan Prize and the Whitehead Prize. He will be an invited speaker at the quadrennial International Congress of Mathematicians in 2018. He also holds a Clay Research Fellowship (2013-18), the most prestigious early career position in world mathematics.
Oxford Mathematician Dominic Vella has won one of this year's prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prizes. The award recognises the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising.
Dominic's research is concerned with various aspects of solid and fluid mechanics in general but with particular focus on the wrinkling of thin elastic objects and surface tension effects. You can see him discussing his work here.
Oxford Mathematician Per-Gunnar Martinsson has been awarded the 2017 Germund Dahlquist Prize by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The Germund Dahlquist Prize is awarded for original contributions to fields associated with Germund Dahlquist, especially the numerical solution of differential equations and numerical methods for scientific computing.
The prize honors Martinsson for fundamental contributions to numerical analysis and scientific computing that are making a significant impact in data science applications. Specific contributions include his development of linear time algorithms for dense matrix operations related to multidimensional elliptic PDEs and integral equations; and he has made deep and innovative contributions to the development of probabilistic algorithms for the rapid solution of certain classes of large-scale linear algebra problems.
Per-Gunnar is currently Professor of Numerical Analysis at the University of Oxford. Hear more from him in this Q & A.
Oxford Mathematician Ulrike Tillmann FRS has been elected a member of the Council of the Royal Society. The Council consists of between 20 and 24 Fellows and is chaired by the President.
Founded in the 1660s, the Royal Society’s fundamental purpose is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity. The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'.
Ulrike specialises in algebraic topology and has made important contributions to the study of the moduli space of algebraic curves.
Ocford Mathematician Nick Trefethen FRS has been awarded the George Pólya Prize for Mathematical Exposition by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) "for the exceptionally well-expressed accumulated insights found in his books, papers, essays, and talks... His enthusiastic approach to his subject, his leadership, and his delight at the enlightenment achieved are unique and inspirational, motivating others to learn and do applied mathematics through the practical combination of deep analysis and algorithmic dexterity."
Nick is Professor of Numerical Analysis and Head of the Numerical Analysis Group here in Oxford.
