Alumnus a Runner-up for Mathematics Prize

A former Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF) recipient is a runner-up for a prestigious international prize recognizing early-career excellence in developing algorithms to model physical systems.

Evan Gawlik, now a mathematics postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego, was among five scholars to place second for the IMA Leslie Fox Prize, awarded by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Scotland’s University of Strathclyde. Gawlik and his fellow prize contenders presented their numerical analysis research and received their awards at the university on June 26, just before the Biennial Conference on Numerical Analysis.

Gawlik presented a paper on “Interpolation of manifold-valued functions via the polar decomposition.” The winner was Nicole Spillane of the Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France. Her paper was titled “An adaptive multipreconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm.”

The prize recognizes researchers under age 31 who present a paper suitable for a 40-minute talk to a general audience of numerical analysts. A three-person committee selects the winners based on originality and quality. A limited number of submitted papers are chosen for presentation and final judging.

Gawlik, a DOE CSGF recipient from 2010 to 2014, earned his doctorate in computational and mathematical engineering from Stanford University in 2015.

The prize is named for Leslie Fox, Oxford University professor of numerical analysis and, from 1957 to 1983, director of the university’s computer laboratory. He was a distinguished researcher in numerical linear algebra and differential equations.

A full list of winners and prize details are available here.