Institute for Mathematics and its Applications University of Minnesota 114 Lind Hall 207 Church Street SE Minneapolis, MN 55455

Annual thematic program on Simulating our complex world: Modeling, computation and analysis approved by IMA Board of Governors for 2010–2011

Dr. Juan Meza, department head of the High Performance Computing Research Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was awarded the Blackwell-Tapia Prize November 14, 2008. The prize is named after David Blackwell and Richard Tapia, two influential figures who inspired a generation of African-American, Native American and Latino/Latina students to pursue careers in mathematics.  The award recognizes a mathematical scientist who has contributed significantly to research and who has served as a role model for mathematical scientists and students from under-represented minority groups.

Dr. Meza received the award as a result of his exceptionally distinguished record as a mathematical scientist, an accomplished and effective head of a large department doing cutting-edge explorations in the computational sciences, computational mathematics, and future technologies, and a role model and active advocate for others from groups under-represented in the mathematical sciences.

Dr. Meza served on the IMA Board of Governors from January 1999 to December 2001.  He has also provided scientific leadership to the IMA by organizing workshops, most recently, the September 2008 workshop on Electronic Structures.

For more information on the 2008 Blackwell-Tapia Conference, go to: http://www.samsi.info.

Margaret Wright, a member of the IMA Board of Governors since 2005, was awarded an honorary PhD degree by the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm on November 21. A Professor at New York University, Wright has made major contributions to applied mathematics, especially in the fields of optimization and scientific computing. She has also worked to include more women in the mathematical sciences.

The Board of Governors consists of 15 distinguished mathematical scientists from academia, industry, and government laboratories. It provides oversight and direction for all major aspects of the organization.

Wright is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She completed her doctoral degree in computer science at Stanford University in 1976 and stayed here until 1988. Between 1988 and 2000, she worked at Bell Laboratories and then moved on to the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University in 2001 as Professor and Chair of the Computer Science Department.