Marker Lectures in the Mathematical Sciences Scheduled for October 22, 23, and 24

Alfio Quarteroni, professor of numerical analysis and director of MOX at the Politecnico of Milan, Italy and honorary professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, will present the 2018/2019 Russel Marker Lectures in the Mathematical Sciences on October 22, 23, and 24 at Penn State on the University Park campus. The free public lectures are sponsored by the Penn State Eberly College of Science.

The series includes a lecture intended for a general audience, titled “Mathematical Models and Their Impact on Our Daily Life,” which will be held at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, October 22, in 114 McAllister Building. Quarteroni will also give three specialized lectures in 114 McAllister Building: “The ICDD Method for the Solution of Multiphysics Problems” at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 23; “Taking Mathematics to Heart” at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 23; and “Reduced order Models for Analysis and Synthesis of Complex Systems” at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 24.

Quarteroni’s research interests concern mathematical modeling, numerical analysis, scientific computing and their applications to fluid mechanics, geophysics, medicine, and the improvement of sports performance.

Quarteroni has been an invited or plenary speaker in more than 300 international conferences and academic seminars. In particular, he had been an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in 2002 in Beijing, and plenary speaker at the ICM in 2006 in Madrid. Among his many awards and honors are the NASA Group Achievement Award for pioneering work in computational fluid dynamics in 1992; the Fanfullino della Riconoscenza in 2006, Citta ‘di Lodi; the Premio Capo D’Orlando in 2006; the Ghislieri Prize in 2013; the International Galileo Galilei prize for Sciences in 2015; the Euler Lecture in 2017; and the Pedro Nunes Lectures in Lisbon in 2018. Quarteroni is the recipient of two European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants: “MATHCARD” in 2008 and “I-HEART” in 2017 and of two ERC PoC (Proof of Concept) grants in 2012 and 2015. He held the Galileian Chair from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy in 2001, and received an honorary degree in Naval Engineering from the University of Trieste, Italy in 2003.

Quarteroni pursued his studies in mathematics at University of Pavia and at University of Paris VI. Since then he has held positions as a professor at Catholic University of Brescia, a professor in mathematics at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and director of the Chair of Modeling and Scientific Computing at EPFL from 1998 until the end of 2017. He is the founder (and first director) of MOX at Politecnico of Milan and of MATHICSE at EPFL, Lausanne. He is the co-founder (and president) of MOXOFF, a spin-off company at Politecnico of Milan.

The Marker Lectures were established in 1984 through a gift from Russell Earl Marker, professor emeritus of chemistry at Penn State, whose pioneering synthetic methods revolutionized the steroid-hormone industry and opened the door to the current era of hormone therapies, including the birth-control pill. The Marker endowment allows the Penn State Eberly College of Science to present annual Marker Lectures in astronomy and astrophysics, the chemical sciences, evolutionary biology, genetic engineering, the mathematical sciences, and physics. For more information about the lectures or for access assistance, contact Kristin Berrigan at (814) 865-7527 or kub897@psu.edu.