The IMA Celebrates its 20th Year

Many of you may have read the very nice article by Barry Cipra in SIAM News, entitled "IMA Celebrates 20 Prodigious Years", reporting on the IMA 20th anniversary conference.

The festivities kicked off with a well-attended open house and reception at the IMA on June 5. The reception was a prelude to a public lecture given by Charles Peskin of the Courant Institute. The lecture, attended by well over 200, was entitled "Secrets of the Heart Revealed--by Mathematics and Computer Simulation".

The highlight of the celebration was the conference "The IMA at 20: Mathematics and its Impact" which took place on June 6-7, 2004, featuring such luminaries as:

• Bjorn Engquist, Princeton University
• Nancy Kopell, Boston University
• Graeme Milton, University of Utah
• Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota
• George C. Papanicolaou, Stanford University
• Wim Sweldens, Lucent Technologies
• Margaret H. Wright, Courant Institute
• Lai Sang Young, Courant Institute
• Panagiotis Souganidis, University of Texas at Austin

A banquet was held in the newly renovated Coffman Union on the University of Minnesota campus. Former directors of the IMA, Hans Weinberger (1982-1987), Avner Friedman (1987-1997), and Willard Miller, Jr. (1997-2001) recount their favorite IMA stories during the after-dinner speeches, which was emceed by current director Douglas N. Arnold. Participants also heard from University of Minnesota VP Christine Maziar and NSF DMS Director Bill Rundell. We also organized a luncheon for current and former IMA postdocs, which drew more than 45 attendees. A number of snapshots we collected from the event are included herein.