Scientific Advisory Panel
The Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) works in conjunction with the Directorate to provide scientific leadership to the Institute and to support the advancement of the Institute's scientific endeavours. The SAP, which is chaired by the Director, includes the Deputy Director and a rotating membership of at least seven distinguished mathematicians from Canada and abroad. The Panel meets twice a year (spring and fall) and makes recommendations to the Board of Directors on the selection of thematic and focus programs, workshops and conferences, summer schools, and special lecture series.
Members 2019- 20
| Luis Caffarelli | University of Texas, Austin |
| Ronald Coifman | Yale University |
| Brendan Hassett | Brown University |
| Mark Lewis | University of Alberta |
| Richard Kenyon | Yale University |
| Dusa McDuff | Barnard College |
| V. Kumar Murty | The Fields Institute |
| George C. Papanicolaou | Stanford University |
| Tom Salisbury | The Fields Institute |
| Sylvia Serfaty | New York University |
| Gigliola Staffilani | MIT |
| Tao Tang | SUSTC |
| Vahid Tarokh | Duke University |
Luis Caffarelli was born and grew up in Buenos Aires. He obtained his Masters of Science (1968) and Ph.D. (1972) at the University of Buenos Aires. His Ph.D. advisor was Calixto Calderón. He currently holds the Sid Richardson Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He also has been a professor at the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago, and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. From 1986 to 1996 he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
In 1991 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded Doctor Honoris Causa from l'École Normale Supérieure, Paris; Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Universidad de La Plata, Argentina. He received the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 1984. Caffarelli is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.
In 2003 Konex Foundation from Argentina granted him the Diamond Konex Award, one of the most prestigious awards in Argentina, as the most important Scientist of his country in the last decade. In 2005, he received the prestigious Rolf Schock Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences "for his important contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations". He also received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Mathematics in 2009. In 2012 he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (jointly with Michael Aschbacher) and became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Ronald Coifman’s research interests include: nonlinear Fourier analysis, wavelet theory, singular integrals, numerical analysis and scattering theory, real and complex analysis; new mathematical tools for efficient computation and transcriptions of physical data, with applications to numerical analysis, feature extraction recognition and denoising. He is currently developing analysis tools for spectrometric diagnostics and hyperspectral imaging.
Coifman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and the National Academy of Sciences. He is a recipient of the 1996 DARPA Sustained Excellence Award, the 1996 Connecticut Science Medal, the 1999 Pioneer Award of the International Society for Industrial and Applied Science, and the 1999 National Medal of Science.
Brendan Hassett is Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics at Brown University.
He received his BA in 1992 from Yale and his PhD from Harvard in 1996 under the supervision of Joseph Harris. From 1996 to 2000 he worked as a Dickson Instructor at the University of Chicago; for part of this time he was supported by a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. He was a faculty member at Rice University from 2000 to 2015 and chaired its mathematics department from 2009 to 2014. He has held visiting positions at the Mittag Leffler Institute in Stockholm, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of Paris (Orsay).
Brendanʼs research focus is algebraic geometry. He enjoys geometric questions inspired from number theory, problems natural from an arithmetic perspective but with surprising geometric implications. He also likes classification problems involving a wide range of techniques, from the classical theory of algebraic curves through Hodge theory and birational geometry.
Brendan has written more than 50 research papers and has authored or co-edited six books. His work has been recognized with a Sloan Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and the Charles W. Duncan Award for Outstanding Faculty at Rice. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Brendan has co-organized more than 20 conferences and workshops, including the 2006 Clay Summer School in Arithmetic Geometry, the Spring 2009 program in Algebraic Geometry at MSRI, and the 2015 AMS Summer Institute in Algebraic Geometry.
Dusa McDuff is the Helen Lyttle Kimmel '42 Professor of Mathematics at Barnard College. At Barnard, she currently teaches "Calculus I", "Perspectives in Mathematics" and courses in geometry and topology.
Professor McDuff gained her early teaching experience at the University of York (U.K.), the University of Warwick (U.K.) and MIT. In 1978, she joined the faculty of the Department of Mathematics at SUNY Stony Brook, where she was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor in 1998.
Professor McDuff has honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, the University of York and the University of Strasbourg. She is a fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and an honorary fellow of Girton College, Cambridge.
She has received the Satter Prize from the American Mathematical Society and the Outstanding Woman Scientist Award from AWIS (Association for Women in Science).
Professor McDuff's service to the mathematical community has been extensive. She is particularly interested in issues connected with the position of women in mathematics, and currently serves on the MSRI Board of Trustees. Together with Dietmar Salamon, she has written several foundational books on symplectic topology as well as many research articles.
V. Kumar Murty, Director, received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1982. From 1982 to 1987 he held research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Concordia University, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. In 1987, he was appointed as Associate Professor at the Downtown campus of the University of Toronto, and 1991 he was promoted to Full Professor. In 2001, he was deputed to the Mississauga campus to serve a two-year term as Associate Chair of Mathematics, and from 2004 to 2007 he served as the inaugural Chair of the newly-created Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the Mississauga campus. Twice he was Chair of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toronto Downtown campus.
With almost 40 years of experience in mathematical sciences at the local, national, and global level, Professor Murty’s impressive resumé outlines his mathematical accomplishments in diverse areas of analytic number theory, algebraic number theory, information security, and arithmetic algebraic geometry. He has served on the Canadian Mathematical Society Board of Directors, held vice-presidency at the Canadian Mathematical Society, and was elected Fields Institute Fellow in 2003. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and recipient of the Inventor of the Year Award at the University of Toronto and of the Coxeter-James Prize. His distinguished record is illustrated through his continued support for graduate and postdoctoral education initiatives. His dedication is also evidenced through his involvement in the NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Projects and through his outstanding contributions to the successful GANITA Computational Laboratory, in addition to numerous visiting positions and special lectures.
A prominent mathematician with more than 120 published articles in leading scholarly journals and extensive involvement with external committees, Professor Murty possesses broad expertise which will enhance the Institute’s position as an international hub for research and innovation. His influence in mathematics operates in tandem with his passion for philanthropic and entrepreneurial endeavours. His recent work on Smart Villages is dedicated to bringing the technological revolution to rural communities in an attempt to bridge the digital divide around the globe.
Richard Kenyon is Professor of Mathematics at Yale University. He received his BA in 1986 from Rice University and PhD from Princeton in 1990 under the supervision of William Thurston. He has held positions in CNRS at Grenoble, Lyon, and Orsay, and as full professor at UBC, Brown and Yale.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a recipient of the Simons Investigator award, the Loeve prize and the Rollo Davidson prize.
His research interests are in statistical mechanics, probability, combinatorics and geometry.
Mark Lewis is Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Biology and Professor of Mathematics/Statistics and Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta. With a research focus in spatial ecology, he has supervised over 50 graduate students and postdocs and has published six books and more than 200 papers. Research prizes include the CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize for Exceptional Research in Mathematics and the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Research Prize. He is a Chief Editor of the Journal of Mathematical Biology, and is former President of the Society for Mathematical Biology. Lewis has experience in helping lead strategic networks, including the NSERC Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network (CAISN) and the NSERC Turning Risk into Action for the Mountain Pine Beetle Network (TRIA). He is a Fellow of the Fields Institute, the Society for Mathematical Biology, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the Royal Society of Canada.
George C Papanicolaou is currently the Robert Grimmett Professor in Mathematics at Stanford University. Besides his former focus on the analysis of waves and diffusion in inhomogeneous or random media, his recent research interests also include financial mathematics, especially the use of asymptotics for stochastic equations in analyzing complex models of financial markets and in data analysis. In 1987, the University of Athens conferred an Honorary Doctor of Science on Papanicolaou. In 2000, he became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Papanicolaou was invited plenary speaker at multiple international congresses, among others at the SIAM 50th anniversary meeting in 2002 and at the International Congress of Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2003. In 2006, he received the SIAM von Neumann Prize in recognition of his wide-ranging work on analytic and stochastic methods and their application to the modeling of phenomena in the physical, geophysical, and financial sciences. In 2010 he received the William Benter Prize in Applied Mathematics. In 2011 he was the Gibbs lecturer of the American Mathematical Society. The University of Paris Diderot conferred on him the degree Doctor Honoris Causa in 2011.
Tom Salisbury, Interim Deputy Director, has served terms as both Deputy Director from 2003 to 2006, and Associate Directory for Industry Liaison from 2016 to 2018. Currently a Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at York University, Professor Salisbury has nearly 40 years of academic experience. He is a leading figure in probability theory, specifically Brownian motion and related Markov processes, including their applications to mathematical finance and actuarial sciences.
Professor Salisbury received his BSc from McGill University in 1979, and his PhD in mathematics from the University of British Columbia in 1983. After a postdoctoral position as a Research Assistant Professor at Purdue University, he moved to York University where he is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Professor Salisbury has been co-editor-in-chief of the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, and has served on the editorial boards of Probability Theory and Related Fields, Fields Institute Communications & Monographs, Potential Analysis, and the Canadian Journal of Statistics.
He teaches a wide range of courses in the mathematical and financial engineering fields. He has also been involved in the finance and insurance sector as director of analytics at Quantitative Wealth Management Analytics group (QWeMA) prior to the latter's acquisition by CANNEX, and as a project leader on the Finsurance project at MITACS. His passion for mathematics education led to his involvement in curriculum development at a provincial level: in 2007, he chaired the task force that initiated the revision of the Ontario’s Grade 12 curriculum, and then served on the Ontario Minister of Education's curriculum council.
Professor Salisbury’s experience also includes a term as President of the Canadian Mathematical Society from 2006 to 2008, and he was the recipient of the CMS’s Graham Wright Award for distinguished service in 2015.
Sylvia Serfaty is Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. Prior to this she has been Professor at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (currently Sorbonne Université) at the Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions, and has held various appointments at the Courant Institute of NYU. She earned her BS and MS in Mathematics from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1995, and her PhD from Université Paris Sud in 1999.
She works in calculus of variations, nonlinear partial differential equations, and mathematical physics. A large part of her work has focused on analyzing vortices in the Ginzburg-Landau model of superconductivity and on the statistical mechanics of systems of points with Coulomb-type repulsion.
She was the recipient of the European Mathematical Society prize in 2004, the Henri Poincaré prize in 2012 and the Mergier-Bourdeix Prize of the Académie des Sciences de Paris in 2013, and was a plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2018. She was also named a Simons investigator in 2018 and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019. Photo credit: Stefan Falke
Gigliola Staffilani has been the MIT Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of Mathematics since 2007. She received the B.S. equivalent from the University of Bologna in 1989, and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago in 1991 and 1995. Following a Szego Assistant Professorship at Stanford, she had faculty appointments at Stanford, Princeton and Brown, before joining the MIT mathematics faculty in 2002 as tenured associate professor (professor in 2006). At Stanford, Professor Staffilani received the Harold M. Bacon Memorial Teaching Award in 1997, and was given the Frederick E. Terman Award for young faculty in 1998. She was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1995-96 and again in 2003-04. She was a Sloan Fellow from 2000-02 and a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard in 2009-10. In 2013 she became an AMS Fellow and a member of the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences. In 2014 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 and she was a Simon Fellow in 2017-18.
Professor Staffilani is an analyst, with a concentration on dispersive nonlinear PDE. With her work she has contributed to the enormous progress that has been made in the last two decades in settling fundamental questions on existence of solutions for dispersive equations, as well as their long time behavior, singularity formation and interactions. This body of work has focused primarily on deterministic aspects of wave phenomena and it has been studied with sophisticated tools from harmonic analysis, nonlinear Fourier analysis, analytic number theory and geometry. More recently, though, a growing interest has been shown by the mathematical community in incorporating a nondeterministic point of view in the field of dispersive PDE and Staffilani's recent work has focused in advancing the field in this direction. Finally Staffilani is also interested on the study of the "process" used by mathematical physicists to pass from a complex system of particles interacting among each other to a macroscopic wave function that is able to describe the most important features of the system as a whole. More precisely, she studies the effective evolution equations arising as an appropriate limit of many body quantum dynamics.
Tao Tang graduated with a B. SC. in Mathematics from Peking University in 1984, and obtained a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leeds in 1989. He was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Science in 2017. He is currently the Vice-President, Dean of the Graduate School, and Chair Professor of Mathematics at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech).
Professor Tang's main research interest is computational mathematics. He has made important and original contributions to the field of scientific computing, including the development of adaptive grid methods and the spectral method, and the establishment of the convergence theory for numerical methods for hyperbolic conservation laws. Professor Tang was awarded the Leslie Fox Prize for numerical analysis in 1988 and the Feng Kang Prize for scientific computing in 2003. He has also won the second prize of the National Natural Science Award in 2016.
He taught as a faculty member at Simon Fraser University from 1990 to 1998. In 1998 he joined the Hong Kong Baptist University and served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics, Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Vice-President. He also served two terms as president of the Hong Kong Mathematical Society. He joined SUSTech in 2015 as its VP Research.
Professor Tang was elected a Fellow of Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in 2012, and a Fellow of American Mathematical Society in 2017. Professor Tang has authored over 100 publications in top international journals.
Vahid Tarokh received an M.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada in 1992, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in 1995. Following half a year of postdoctoral fellowship at UIUC, he worked at AT&T Labs-Research until 2000, and as an Associate Professor at MIT until 2002. He joined Harvard University as a Hammond Vinton Hayes Senior Fellow of Electrical Engineering and Perkins Professor of Applied Mathematics. He joined Duke University in January 2018.
Tarokh has received a number of awards including the Governor General of Canada Academic Gold Medal 1996, the IEEE Information Theory Society Prize Paper Award 1999, the Alan T. Waterman Award 2001 and was selected as one of the Top 100 Inventors of Years (1999–2002) by Technology Review magazine. In addition, the IEEE Communications Society has recognized him as the author of one of the most important papers published in IEEE Transactions in the last 50 years. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in Applied Mathematics for his contributions to the theory of pseudo-random matrices. He holds four honorary degrees.
Tarokh’s current research interests are in representation, modeling, inference and prediction from data, and the design of organic machines.
