June 7, 2007 – The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) presented the 2007 Ralph E. Kleinman Prize on May 28 to Salvatore Torquato, Professor of Chemistry at the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials at Princeton University. The prize was awarded at the biennial SIAM Conference on Dynamical Systems, held this year at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Snowbird, Utah from May 28 through June 1. The award consists of a framed, hand-calligraphed certificate and a $5,000 cash prize.
Dr. Torquato was awarded the Kleinman Prize for his many and deep contributions to the modeling, analysis and computational study of heterogeneous materials. His multifaceted approach has let to highly original advances in a diverse set of problems, including the characterization of microstructure, the prediction of macroscopic properties of heterogeneous materials, percolation theory, the understanding of liquid and glass states and the optimal design of composite microstructures. His insights and contributions have bridged the gap between mathematics and applications in a way that only someone intimately familiar with both could provide.
The Kleinman Prize, established in 1998, is awarded to one individual for outstanding research, or other contributions, that bridge the gap between mathematics and applications. Work that uses high-level mathematics and/or invents new mathematical tools to solve applied problems from engineering, science, and technology is particularly appropriate. The value of the work will be measured by the quality of the mathematics and its impact on the application. Each prize is given for either a single notable achievement or a collection of such achievements.
The members of the selection committee for this award were: Gregory Kriegsmann (Chair), Max Gunzburger, Ioannis Kevrekidis, Michael Miksis, and Rosemary Renaut.
Dr. Torquato was a Grumman Masters Fellow from 1975-1977 during which time he obtained his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from SUNY at Stony Brook and worked as a research scientist at Grumman Aerospace Corporation, Bethpage, NY. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1981 from SUNY at Stony Brook under the supervision of George Stell. Dr. Torquato is a Senior Faculty Fellow in the Princeton Center for Theoretical Physics, an enterprise dedicated to exploring frontiers across the theoretical natural sciences. He is also an Associated Faculty Member in four departments or programs at Princeton: Departments of Physics, Chemical Engineering, and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics. Dr. Torquato is a member of several professional organizations, including SIAM, the American Physical Society and the American Chemical Society.
SIAM is an international community of over 11,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians, computer scientists, and other scientists and engineers. The Society advances these fields by publishing a series of premier journals and a variety of books, and producing a wide selection of conferences. More information about SIAM is available at http://www.siam.org.