Professor Sergey Bolotin has been an associate professor at UW-Madison since the fall semester of the 2001-02 academic year. Sergey received the Doctor of Science degree in March 1998 from the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of Moscow State University. His research interests include dynamical systems, variational methods, integrability of Hamiltonian systems, and celestial mechanics. In 2001 he was awarded the S. V. Kovalevskaya prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences for his series of papers on integrability and nonintegrability in Hamiltonian systems (with V. V. Kozlov). In 1994 Sergey was an invited lecturer at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Zurich. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Regular and Chaotic Dynamics. During the last couple of years, Sergey has given invited talks all over the world, including the conference on Dynamical Systems in honor of John Mather (Princeton), the University of Barcelona, the University of Rome, and conferences on dynamical systems and differential equations in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Professor Bolotin had five PhD students while he was on the faculty of Moscow State University.

Professor Leslie Smith has been an associate professor of mathematics and mechanical engineering at UW-Madison since 1999. With the beginning of the 2002-03 academic year, she has moved her 25% time appointment in mechanical engineering to engineering physics. Leslie received the PhD in applied mathematics from MIT in 1988 and was in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Yale University before coming to Madison. Her research interests include statistical physics, turbulence and turbulence modeling for engineering, geophysical and aerophysical applications, stability theory, and fluid dynamics. Professor Smith is on the editorial board of the journal Communications in Mathematical Sciences. In 2000 she was co-organizer of an AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference in Mathematical Sciences, Dispersive Wave Equations held at Mount Holyoke College in Massachussets. Her many recent invited talks include those at the Oberwolfach conference on Mathematical Theory and Modelling in Atmosphere-Ocean Sciences, the University of Maryland, and The Institute for Mathematics and its Applications in Minnesota. In May of this year Leslie is an invited speaker at the Utah Dynamical Systems Conference. Dr. Smith is PI on two large grants, one on Wave Turbulence in Atmospheric and Oceanic Flows (NSF) and the other on Investigation of Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov Instabilities (Department of Energy). This past semester Professor Smith taught the central course (Math 221 - first semester calculus) of a FIG (First-Year Interest Group). In addition to Math 221, the twenty students took together a chemistry course and a sociology course on problems of American racial and ethnic minorities, with the FIG students in the same lab and discussion sections. The FIG program is a new program at Madison, whose goals include helping new students adjust to university life and increased retention. To the extent possible, some of the content of the second and third courses of a FIG are integrated into the small central course. Leslie will be repeating the FIG next academic year.

Professor Fabian Waleffe joined UW-Madison as an assistant professor of mathematics and engineering physics in 1997. He received a civil engineering degree from the Université Liège in 1985. Fabian was promoted to associate professor in 1997. Fabian's PhD is in applied mathematics from MIT in 1989, and he was an assistant professor of applied mathematics at MIT before coming to Madison. His research interests include fluid dynamics, instabilities, self-sustaining dissipative structures, turbulence, and rotating flows. His other interests include aerospace and geophysics. Recent invited talks include a plenary talk at the Ïnternational Symposium on dynamics and statistics of coherent structures in turbulence" at the National Institute of Sciences in Tokyo, followed by a week long visit at Kyoto University. Fabian is a private pilot and got an airplane instrument rating last year which allows him to fly in clouds and bad weather; he took a week long trip in a small airplane around the western US to complete the training. Last year he flew a small airplane to Michigan Tech to give an invited seminar and to Washington DC for an NSF panel review.