Misha Feldman was awarded the SIAG/APDE Prize. Established in 2005 by the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the prize is awarded to the author(s) of the most outstanding paper, as determined by the prize committee, on a topic in Partial Differential Equations published in English in a peer-reviewed journal. Misha was honored for the paper "Global Solutions to Shock Reflection by Large-Angle Wedges for Potential Flow", joint with G.-Q. Chen. Their work focuses on the study of the reflection of a shock wave from a wedge-shaped obstacle, and has applications in aerodynamics. The work is a breakthrough in the mathematical understanding of this long-standing open problem. More information about the SIAG/APDE prize can be found here.

Shi Jin was invited by the University of Ferrara, Italy as a Copernicus Visiting Scientist in June 2010. Each year between 3 and 6 international scholars are invited to Ferrara to offer a two month course under this program, with the aim of achieving excellent teaching standards at an international level.

Shi Jin was also one of three principal investigators who obtained the National Science Foundation Division of Mathematical Sciences (NSF-DMS) Research Network award: "KI-Net: Kinetic description of emerging challenges in multiscale problems of natural sciences." This research network is a new operation mode of NSF-DMS. This is the first year NSF-DMS runs this program, and only three awards were given in all areas of mathematics and statistics. University of Wisconsin-Madison, together with the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of Texas-Austin, form the three hubs for this five year five million dollar network focused on research and training of young scientists. The research supported by the grant is in the area of kinetic partial differential equations. These equations describe the behavior of particle ensembles and are used to model a variety of processes in the physics of liquids, plasma, and in biology. See this link for more information.

Timo Seppalainen was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). Created in 1935, IMS is a professional society that promotes the theory and application of probability and statistics. About 6 percent of the membership of 4500 have the status of a Fellow. Timo is also finishing a 3-year term as the Chief Editor of Electronic Communications in Probability, one of the leading journals in probability and affiliated with IMS.

The paper "Global well-posedness for the critical 2D dissipative quasi-geostrophic equation" by Alexander Kiselev and Fedor Nazarov, written jointly with Alexander Volberg from Michigan State University, was profiled as a fast moving front paper (highly cited) by Thomson Reuters. The paper introduces new mathematical techniques in the analysis of a class of partial differential equations appearing in fluid mechanics and atmospheric science.

Jean-Luc Thiffeault has authored an article in Science magazine. Science is one of the two most visible journals in the broad scientific community. Thiffeault's research deals with mixing in fluids and applications to physics, chemistry and biology.

Benedek Valkó and Andrej Zlatoš won National Science Foundation (NSF) Career awards. These highly competitive grants are among the most prestigious NSF awards for young mathematicians, with a five year budget of approximately half a million dollars. Only a small number of them are awarded to mathematicians in any given year.

Valkó's research deals with the analysis of systems with a large number of random components and complex interactions. The goal of his Career project is to develop new tools for their study and to provide a better understanding of various problems involving such systems. The educational part of the project focuses on the enhancement of undergraduate and graduate probability education at UW-Madison and active involvement of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in Valkó's area of research.

Zlatoš works on partial differential equations modeling reactive processes such as burning in internal combustion engines, nuclear reactions in stars, and forest fires. Their study is relevant to several branches of science and engineering such as astrophysics, biology, environmental science, and chemical engineering. His Career project focuses on the influence of the motion of the underlying medium, such as a flow of a fluid or gas, on the speed of spreading of these reactive processes. It aims to improve our understanding of the fundamental mathematical models describing such processes, which may provide useful qualitative insights into real life phenomena. An educational component forms an integral part of this project as well.

Uri Andrews received the Sacks Prize. The prize is awarded annually for the most outstanding doctoral dissertation worldwide in the area of mathematical logic.

Our faculty were also successful in recent university-wide awards competitions. In particular, Jordan Ellenberg won an H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship award in recognition of his outstanding research and teaching, and Misha Feldman won the 2011 Vilas Associates award in recognition of his ground breaking research in partial differential equations.

In addition, a list of teaching awards of our faculty as well as teaching and research awards of our graduate students and undergraduate mathematics majors can be found here.