Three UT Austin mathematicians have recently garnered recognition for their contributions to mathematics and education. The Institute for Mathematics and its Applications at the University of Minnesota has awarded associate professor Rachel Ward the IMA Prize in Mathematics and its Applications. The International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians' (ICCM) has awarded professor Björn Engquist its International Cooperation Award. And professor Inderjit Dhillon has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Rachel Ward's recognized research, done with collaborator Deanna Needell, an associate professor of mathematics at Claremont McKenna College, was focused on the processing of images, such as MRI scans, computationally. Their work aimed to provide the best possible image from the least detailed (and therefore most practical) information. The IMA Award for Mathematics and Its Applications is given yearly in recognition of outstanding work by an early career researcher, and Ward and Needell receive $3,000 as part of the award.
Professor Björn Engquist was given the ICCM International Cooperation Award for his "significant contributions in nurturing and mentoring a large number of outstanding Chinese mathematicians, and his strong support of the Chinese mathematical community throughout his career." Engquist has advised over 30 doctoral students and is accomplished in the field of numerical modeling, working currently on modeling which has applications to seismology. He is also the director of numerical analysis at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. The award was presented at the 7th triennial ICCM meeting, in August of 2016.
Professor Inderjit Dhillon and four other University of Texas at Austin faculty members have been named fellows of the AAAS, the world's largest general scientific society. Dhillon was elected for his contributions to large-scale data analysis and computational mathematics. His research emphasis is on developing novel algorithms that respect the underlying problem structure and are scalable to massive data sets. Dhillon and the other new fellows were recently inducted at a ceremony on February 18, 2017, at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.
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