| Van Vleck Notes |
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| Department of Mathematics |
| University of Wisconsin |
Contents
From the Editor ...
Our newsletter is
a little later than usual this year due to the fact that it
will now be based on a calendar year, rather than the academic year as in the
past. It will be distributed about this time every year from now on. The last
newsletter was dated 1999; this one is dated 2001. It's not a Y2K problem;
you haven't missed an issue. Nor have you missed any of the news that we know
you look forward to reading about every year. The current issue is packed
with news about faculty, students, staff, awards, conferences, and many other
things as well. I won't give any of it away here, you'll have to look inside.
And what about the University, the City of Madison, and the State of
Wisconsin? All remain very exciting places in which to work and live.
UW-Madison has undergone a change of leadership with David Ward stepping down
as chancellor after 8 years and, after a national search, with Provost
John
Wiley becoming the new chancellor. The smooth transition took place at the
end of the year 2000.
The big news in Madison is the major civic gift of Madison businessman W.
Jerome Frautschi to develop an Arts District, bounded by State, Henry,
Fairchild and
Mifflin Streets, enclosing the current Civic Center. The entire area will
be remodeled with existing facilities expanded and new ones added.
Internationally recognized architect Cesar Pelli has been selected to
lead the design of the project. A renaissance is taking place in downtown
Madison.
The big news about the State is that after 14 years, Tommy Thompson has
resigned as governor to become Secretary of Health and Human Services in the
Bush administration. Recently Governor Thompson has been a strong advocate
for the university supporting, in particular, new construction on campus and
the UW-Madison Initiative of David Ward, which has added new funds to the
university in a public/private partnership. The overall goals of the Madison
Initiative include maintaining our research preeminence by retaining faculty
and attracting new faculty, especially in emerging areas of knowledge,
improving our world-class education, and keeping Wisconsin's best students in
Wisconsin.
The old-timers among you certainly remember the Statute of Liberty
emerging from the ice of Lake Mendota about 30 years ago. Had you been in
Madison during the first weekend of February of this year, you would have
seen it all over again, but this time emerging from Lake Monona in front
of
the Monona Terrace Convention Center.
RAB
From the Chair
As readers of these newsletters can surely tell, our department has been
undergoing a substantial rejuvenation. In this process we have sought to
foster development in important areas of mathematics that were previously
underrepresented at Wisconsin. Our success has been quite remarkable, for
instance we now have a growing national reputation in areas like number
theory, symplectic geometry and applied mathematics as well as continued
strength in traditional areas.
Another important development have been the multiple math conferences that
are now held in Madison every year. This year we have had an algebra
conference, a logic conference and soon we will hold a conference in
mathematical physics. This summer the MAA will hold its annual Mathfest
in Madison. Our department will also be hosting an AMS Central
Section meeting on October 12 & 13, 2002; it is the first such meeting to
be held in Madison in many years.
Unfortunately not all the news is good, the recent death of Professor
L. C. Young was a very sad event for all of his family, friends
and colleagues. He was a remarkable mathematician and human being and he
will be sorely missed.
Last year we were fortunate to have an undergraduate scholarship endowed
by David and Janet Kirkbride - he is a former UW math undergraduate.
We received a very generous gift for the WES program from Wally Hilliard.
We also received an endowment to establish the John Nohel Prize for a
thesis in applied mathematics, generously funded by Carl de Boor,
Liselotte Karrer and Mike Crandall. Space limitations do not permit me to
mention all of those who have contributed to our department, let me just
say THANKS! Your gifts mean a lot to us and we are very grateful for your
generosity. Even small donations can make a big difference for our
research and teaching programs and we are especially careful to
make good use of them.
Let me sign off by extending an invitation to all of our friends to stop
by and visit us here in Madison or to simply drop us a line. We would be
delighted to talk with you and fill you in on local developments. Keep in
touch!
Alejandro Adem
UW-Madison Math Dept Chair
Please use this form to update our information on your activities for
use in the next newsletter.
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David Kirkbride graduated in 1963 with a B.S. degree with a major
in Mathematics, after having already served a hitch in the Marine
Corps. Dave relates how when he started at UW-Madison in 1955 as a
17 year old fresh out of high school, he was unprepared for the
rigors of college life and not sufficiently motivated. So he
dropped out after one year and joined the Corps. Returning to
Madison in the spring of 1959, he started over, got married to
Janet in 1961, had two children, and graduated - all in four
years! Both Dave and Janet worked full time while Dave was in
school; Janet is a registered nurse. One of the things he learned
during these early years is that, if you bring nothing else to the
table, commitment and hard work will go a long way.
After graduation Mr. Kirkbride went to work as a computer
programmer - a new kind of job then - for Control Data, and his
career followed a fairly traditional path, generally concentrating
in the development and implementation of application software.
He says there were three overriding influences in his life without
which he would not have enjoyed the growth he experienced and his
success, namely, in no particular order, the Marine Corps, his
wife Janet, and the University of Wisconsin. The donation of the
Kirkbride's was motivated by wanting to be of some assistance to a
student who is likely to become, in one way or another, a leader
in some future generation.
We are extremely grateful to David and Janet Kirkbride for
their generosity in establishing this very important addition to
our undergraduate program.
Generous donations from Carl de Boor, Michael Crandall and Liselotte
Karrer have funded the John Nohel Prize in Mathematics for a thesis in
applied
mathematics. John Nohel is a former member of our department and director
of the Mathematics Research Center. He died in 1997 (see the obituary in
last year's newsletter). The prize is to honor his memory and his many
important contributions to mathematics, the department, and the
university.
I. Martin Isaacs is the recipient of MAA's Edith May
Sliffe Award for distinguished high school mathematics teaching.
These awards are a result of a bequest made to the MAA by Sliffe,
a retired high school mathematics teacher at Emeryville,
California. How does a non-high school teacher like Marty receive
such an award? Nominations were solicited from the three students
of each of the 60 highest scoring teams on the American
Mathematics Competition, a program of the MAA. The students were
asked to recommend a teacher or mentor for a National Teaching
Award. The students from West High School Team in Madison (Daniel
Kane, Chris Moore, and Yian Zhang) nominated Marty Isaacs for his
mentoring and leadership role in the Wisconsin Mathematics,
Engineering, and Science Talent Search Program. The award includes
a cash prize of $350 and a free one-year membership in the MAA. A
presentation ceremony will be held at West High School.
Richard Askey gave lectures this past year at a meeting on
symmetry in mathematical physics in Dubna, Russia and at a meeting
in Dalian, China in honor of L. C. Hsu on his 80th birthday. He
also gave the Taft Lectures at the University of Cincinnati. Of
special interest, Dick also spoke on the mathematical knowledge
teachers need at a hearing of the National Goals Education Panel
(NGEP) in Burlington, Vermont. NGEP is a group established by state
Governors and the business community. Former Governor Tommy Thompson of
Wisconsin was the co-chair of NGEP. Professor Askey also was
selected by the Wisconsin chapter of the honor society Phi Kappa
Phi to be their annual speaker.
Fred Brauer, recently retired from our Department (but not
from mathematics - read on), has an Honorary Appointment at the
University of British Columbia in Vancouver where he now resides.
Among the faculty there are three Wisconsin PhDs: Cindy Greenwood
(PhD 1963, J. Chover), John Fournier (PhD 1967, F. Forelli and S.
Wainger), and Dale Rolfsen (PhD 1967, J. Martin). Fred took part
in a workshop on mathematical approaches to emerging and
reemerging diseases at the IMA in May 1999, and the proceedings of
this workshop, which will appear soon are being dedicated to
Ken Cooke and Fred. Fred also gave talks in the Pacific Institute of
Mathematical Sciences' thematic programme in mathematical biology
(consisting of five workshops in Vancouver) in 1999, a session on
mathematical models via differential equations run by the MAA at
the joint meetings in Washington in January 2000, and a
minisymposium on mathematical epidemiology at the SIAM annual
meeting in Puerto Rico in July 2000. Fred and his wife Esther look
forward to visits to Vancouver of their many Madison friends. His
book "Mathematical Models in Population Biology and Epidemiology"
written with Carlos Castillo-Chavez (PhD 1984, F. Brauer) will
be published early this year by Springer, in their series of texts
in applied mathematics. The origins of this book are in some
handwritten notes for our Math 415 in 1982, revised and augmented
many times since then.
Hans Schneider was one of the organizers of an Oberwolfach
meeting in November, 2000 on Nichtnegative Matrizen,
M-Matrizen und deren Verallgemeinerungen. The other organizers
were frequent Madison visitors Daniel Hershkowitz (Haifa) and
Volker Mehrmann (Berlin).
Deanna has taken up a new job with the Division of Workforce
Development, Unemployment Benefits, which will allow her to spend
more time with her family. A good luck gift was presented to
Deanna, along with a cake to share with faculty and staff, on her
last day at work.
http://math.wisc.edu/directories/alumni.html
Please accept my contribution in the amount of $ (enclosed) which is designated for:
For donations to the above funds, please make checks payable to UW
Foundation and send to: UW Foundation, P.O. Box 8860, Madison, WI
53708-8860.
All contributions are tax deductible; many corporations have a
matching grants program.
It is a great pleasure for me to take the opportunity to write
a few
lines
for the readers of the Van Vleck Notes. As you may know our department is
marching full steam ahead with its hiring. Last year we hired four
excellent mathematicians (S. Jin, X. Gong, T. Yang and A. Ionescu). They
cover
a wide variety of mathematical areas and will add considerable strength to
our faculty. I am pleased to report that this year we have also been very
successful at hiring, in fact we made three offers and had three
acceptances! Our newest colleagues are very distinguished mathematicians:
Sergey Bolotin (from Moscow State University, 1994 ICM speaker) works in
dynamical systems; Timo Seppäläinen (from Iowa State) works in
probability; and Lev Borisov (from Columbia University) is an algebraic
geometer with interests in both mathematical physics and number theory.
Sincerely,
Address Correction and Alumni News Click here for an electronic
version of this form
Send to:
Richard A. Brualdi, Editor,
Department of Mathematics,
University of Wisconsin,
480 Lincoln Drive,
Madison, WI 53706-1381 (brualdi@math.wisc.edu)
Home Address:
David and Janet Kirkbride Scholarship Established
Through a very generous donation of David and Janet Kirkbride, the
Mathematics Department has established the ``Kirkbride
Scholarship'' of a semester's tuition for an outstanding
undergraduate student studying mathematics.
Other News
James Propp gave an invited talk entitled "Domino Tilings:
Enumeration, Random Generation, and Asymptotics" at the 12th
International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic
Combinatorics in Moscow in June, 2000. Also James Propp and
David Wilson have been given the INFORMS College on Simulation's
Outstanding Simulation Publication Award. The aim of this annual
award is to recognize an outstanding piece of work in the field of
simulation that has been published in the previous four years.
The $500 award was given in recognition of the two articles (1)
``Exact Sampling with Coupled Markov Chains and Applications to
Statistical Mechanics", Random Structures and Algorithm,
vol. 9 (1996), pages 223-252, and (ii) ``Coupling from the past: a
user's guide", Microsurveys in Discrete Probability, vol. 41
of DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer
Science, edited by D. Aldous and J. Propp, pages 181-192,
American Mathematical Society, 1998.
Alex Nagel has been elected to a 3-year term, beginning
February 1, 2001, as Member-at-Large of the Council of the American
Mathematical Society.
Louis Rall gave an invited plenary lecture on ``Algorithmic
Differencing" at Scan2000, GAMM-IMACS International Symposium on
Scientific Computer, Computer Arithmetic, and Validated Numerics,
in Karlsruhe, Germany in September, 2000.
Carl de Boor has been elected a foreign member of the Polish
Academy of Sciences.
Steffen Lempp is one of the organizers of the Oberwolfach
meeting in January, 2001 on Computability Theory.
Daniel Rider was named Outstanding Faculty Mentor for
1999-2000. Dan was cited for his many hours of volunteer time and
his success as a mentor. The award was presented at the Mentor
Program Spring Banquet in May, 2000.
Ed Fadell and Sufian Husseini are authors of
Geometry and Topology of Configuration Spaces published by
Springer (in the Springer Monographs in Mathematics series).
Kay Strangman has been promoted from Lecturer to Senior
Lecturer.
Amos Ron has been awarded an NSF/ITR grant to use
computational harmonic analysis to study internet dynamics.
NSF held last spring a competition in the
area of Information Technology Research. 980 proposals were
submitted, and 63 awards were made. UW-Madison was awarded a $2.6
million grant in order to develop new mathematical tools for
studying the dynamics of the Internet traffic. The project
involves mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists
from UW-Madison, AT&T, Stanford, Princeton, Dartmouth College and
Saarbrucken (Germany).
Tom Kurtz became editor of the Annals of Probability
Theory on April 1, 2000. Peter Ney held this position from 1988
through 1990.
Markus Banagl, a second year Van Vleck Visiting Assistant
Professor, has been awarded a two-year NSF grant for the project
"Self-dual sheaves on singular spaces."
Lawrence Levy spent the academic year 1999-2000, his first
emeritus year, traveling, primarily to do - face to face - the
research that he normally does with various collaborators via
email. This took him to US destinations: MSRI (Berkeley), UC-Santa
Barbara, and Florida Atlantic University; and basic foreign
destination Leeds, England (3 months), with brief side-trips to
Bristol and Exeter (England), Padua and Florence (Italy), and
Murcia and Barcelona (Spain).
Mary Gallagher and Diane Rivard of the Math Tutorial Program
have been
promoted from Assistant Faculty Associate to Associate Faculty
Associate.
November 3, 2000 was the last working day in Van Vleck Hall for
the Chair's Secretary, Deanna Zarecki. Deanna began in the
Mathematics Department with a limited term appointment (LTE) in
1990. That same year she became the Timetable/Registration
Representative. In 1994 she was appointed the Chair's Secretary
and worked so well in that position for more than six years.
Richard Brualdi, who was the Chair for most of Deanna's time in
that position, valued her very much as a loyal and extremely
knowledgeable and competent member of the support staff. Her
expertise with computers was very important in the Department. She
was responsible for keeping hiring records, arranging textbooks,
preparing tenure and award nominations, among many other things.
Many of you know Deanna from this newsletter, of which she was the
Technical Editor for four years. She worked with the Chair in
designing the new look for our Newsletter in 1995. She worked
tirelessly on the PhD Centennial in 1997, for which she was
responsible for so much of the organization. She collaborated with
the Chair in putting together the Centennial Red Book, which
remains a valuable source of information (some of which is now on
our web page).
In September, 2000, UW-Madison hosted
a two-week post-doctoral marathon that was sponsored by the
Wavelet IDR Center (waveletidr.org). More than 10 post-doctoral
fellows from Caltech, Stanford, Princeton and South Carolina met
in Madison with senior and junior researchers in the area of
Multiresolutions Analysis (wavelet, subdivision techniques, and
the like).
Alumni News and Comments
Death Notices
UW Foundation Accounts (Department of Mathematics)
in the Distinguished Lecture
series...
| Van Vleck Notes |
| Phone:(608) 263-3054 | Email:recep@math.wisc.edu |
| Fax: (608) 263-8891 | Home Page:http://www.math.wisc.edu |
| Richard A. Brualdi, editor (brualdi@math.wisc.edu) |
|
University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Mathematics 480 Lincoln Drive Madison, WI 53706-1388 |
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