CONFERENCE HONORING UH PROFESSOR TO ATTRACT
LEADING RESEARCHERS FROM U.S., ABROAD
Renowned Computational Scientists Celebrate Work of Mathematician
on his 70th Birthday
HOUSTON, March 7, 2007 – Eminent computational scientists
from Europe and the United States will gather in Houston this week
for a two-day conference and banquet honoring a world-renowned University
of Houston mathematician on his 70th birthday.
UH is hosting the USA Conference on Applied and Numerical PDEs
(partial differential equations) March 9-10 to acknowledge the career
achievements of Roland Glowinski, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen
Professor of Mathematics. Glowinski, who also is a mechanical engineering
professor, is an expert on numerical analysis and variational methods.
The Department of Mathematics, the College of Natural Sciences
and Mathematics (NSM), the College of Technology and the Texas Learning
and Computation Center (TLC2) are sponsoring the event.
Much of Glowinski’s work involves computer simulations to
describe scientific, medical and engineering problems mathematically.
He is well known for his research on new mathematic models of particular
flow and for the application of mathematical and computational methods
to the design of a new class of heart valves.
Organizers expect up to 100 attendees at the conference, to be
opened by Donald Birx, UH vice president for research. Hours are
9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Friday, March 9 and 9 a.m.-noon, Saturday,
March 10 in Room 232 of Philip G. Hoffman Hall on the UH campus.
Speakers include 16 scientists from France, Switzerland, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Stanford University, the California Institute
of Technology, The University of Texas at Austin, UT-Dallas, Rice
University and UH. The schedule is accessible online at http://www.math.uh.edu/~pan/Seminar/seminar/program-online.pdf.
An estimated 80 guests also will gather at the Petroleum Club of
Houston Friday evening to celebrate Glowinski’s 70th birthday.
William Fitzgibbon, dean of the UH College of Technology, will preside
over the event, with reflections given by Jacques Periaux, Distinguished
Professor, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland; and Mary Wheeler, Ernest
and Virginia Cockrell Chair of Engineering and director of the Center
for Subsurface Modeling, UT Austin. Jeffrey Morgan, chair of the
UH Department of Mathematics, will make a presentation on behalf
of NSM.
Since coming to UH in 1985, Glowinski has amassed numerous honors,
including election as a member of the French Academy of Sciences
in 2005. Other honors are membership in the French National Academy
of Technology, the Academia Europaea and the Morningside Group,
which promotes computational and applied mathematics in China; and
induction as a chevalier in the Légion d’Honneur, the
French equivalent of knighthood. He also received the Esther Farfel
award, the highest honor bestowed on a member of the UH faculty,
and the Theodore von Kármán Prize, an international
honor awarded every five years.
Growing up under challenging conditions during World War II as
a Jewish youth in Nazi-occupied France, Glowinski went on to earn
a bachelor’s degree in communication engineering and worked
as an engineer for the French broadcasting system.
After earning master’s and doctoral degrees in applied mathematics,
he served from 1970-1985 as scientific director of INRIA, the French
national institute for computational science, and from 1981-1985
as a department chair at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie,
where he is professor emeritus. Glowinski also received an honorary
doctorate from the internationally recognized research campus of
the University of Jyvaskyla, where he has been a docent professor
of computational and applied mathematics since 2001.
He has authored seven books and authored or co-authored more than
300 research articles, and served as editor for more than 20 scientific
reviews and anthologies.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research
and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers
and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate,
civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university
in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and
service with more than 35,000 students.
For more information about UH visit the universitys Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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