August 13, 2007—Dr. Nancy Kopell was recently awarded The John von Neumann Lecture by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), an honor in which she was recognized for her work in mathematical applications to biology.
The award’s citation acknowledged Kopell “in recognition of her work on coupled nonlinear oscillators and their application to chemically reactive media, smooth muscle, the spinal chord, and the human brain. Professor Kopell is also being recognized for her leadership role in the application of mathematics to biology. Her careful nurturing of students and postdocs is helping to create a truly interdisciplinary generation of scientists for whom the boundary between the mathematical and biological sciences will be an opportunity instead of a barrier.”
Cleve Moler, President of SIAM, presented the prize. It is awarded for outstanding and distinguished contributions to the field of applied mathematical sciences and for the effective communication of these ideas to the community. Kopell received a monetary award and certificate, and presented a survey lecture entitled, “Rhythms of the Nervous System: How to Connect Biophysics with Behavior.”
Kopell is co-director of the Center for BioDynamics at the Department of Mathematics of Boston University. “My major current interest is dynamics of the nervous system, especially rhythmic behavior in networks of neurons. Rhythms have been known in the nervous system for about three quarters of a century, but it is still mysterious what biophysical mechanisms produce them, and what functions they serve,” Kopell says. “A long-range goal is to understand how the dynamical properties of local networks help to filter and transform the patterned input from other parts of the nervous system, to provide clues to the function of dynamics in the nervous system.”
The John von Neumann Lecture was presented on July 16, at ICIAM 2007, the 6th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, held this year in Zürich, Switzerland. The selection committee included Martin Golubitsky, Chair, University of Houston; David Keyes, Columbia University; Jerrold Marsden, California Institute of Technology; Cleve Moler, The Mathworks, Inc.; and Charles Peskin, Courant Institute, New York University.
The prize is named for John von Neumann in recognition of his pioneering work in numerical analysis as well as his work as an architect and promoter of the fields of computer science and scientific computing. The John von Neumann Lecture fund was started with contributions from IBM Corporation and other organizations; the prize was established by SIAM in 1959. It has been augmented and awarded annually by SIAM, 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 www.siam.org.