Princeton professor to receive prestigious prize in mathematics June 30, 2009

Ralph E. Kleinman Prize to be awarded to  Weinan E

Weinan E, professor in the Department of  Mathematics and Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University  will be awarded the Ralph E. Kleinman Prize at the annual  meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in Denver,   Colorado, July 6-10.

Professor E is being honored for his  extraordinary interdisciplinary contributions and  for his exemplary record in mentoring students and postdocs. He has had a profound impact on research in stochastic partial differential equations and  turbulence, numerical solutions of multiscale problems, dynamics of interacting  dislocations, liquid crystals and polymers,  metastability, protein folding, gas dynamics,  epitaxial growth, micromagnetics, and  superconductivity.

Weinan E received his Ph.D. from University of California,  Los Angeles and  is  currently a professor in the Department of  Mathematics and the Program in Applied  and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. His research interests  include multiscale modeling, density functional theory for electronic structure  analysis, theory and modeling of rare events  with applications in chemistry and  material sciences, stochastic partial  differential equations, and the mathematical theory of solids, from atomic to macroscopic  scales. Professor E is a member of  the American Mathematical Society, American  Physical Society, and SIAM.  He is also  a Fellow of the Institute of Physics  and is among the inaugural class of SIAM Fellows.

Established in 1998, the Ralph E. Kleinman  Prize is awarded every other year to one  individual for outstanding research or other  contributions that bridge the gap between mathematics and applications. Work  that uses high-level mathematical tools is  particularly appropriate. The value of the work is measured by the quality of  the  mathematics and its impact on the  applications. Each prize may be given either for a  single notable achievement or for a collection of such achievements.

The members of the selection committee for  the 2009 award include Graeme Milton (Chair), University of Utah;  Margaret Cheney, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;  Michael Miksis, Northwestern University;  Rosemary Renaut, Arizona   State University;  and William Symes, Rice University.