Celebrating Our SIAM Successes Together

The end of the year is a natural time of reflection, and I’m so pleased to share some of SIAM’s recent accomplishments and a few important updates from the Development and Corporate Relations team. What a year it has been! 

In 2024, we partnered with some amazing companies through our conference sponsorships and exhibits program. These sponsors—including ExxonMobil, Jane Street, IBM, Pfizer, and multiple U.S. national laboratories—have played an important role in making SIAM conferences the best that they can be. Sponsors receive a range of benefits, such as complimentary conference registration, logo placement online and on site at conference venues, and opportunities to connect with the SIAM community via SIAM communications and social media channels. If your organization—or an organization with which you are familiar—would benefit from a sponsorship with SIAM, please reach out to our Corporate Relations team at sponsorship@siam.org.

SIAM has been very fortunate to receive many charitable gifts this year that promote a wide range of initiatives that are essential to our mission. After a successful fundraising campaign and thanks in part to significant support from SIAM’s own investments, we are excited to see the SIAM Industry Prize reach fully endowed status. This new prize will be awarded every year to an individual or team of researchers who have made outstanding contributions to the effective application of mathematical sciences in industry. The first iteration will be presented at the Third Joint SIAM/CAIMS Annual Meetings (AN25), which will take place in Montreal, Canada, from July 28-August 1, 2025. Thank you to the SIAM community for your assistance with the prize’s fundraising campaign — this award would not be possible without you!

You may recall that the SIAM Activity Group on Optimization (SIAG/OPT) Test of Time Award was established in 2022 to recognize an individual or group of researchers for an outstanding single piece of work with significant and sustained influence on the field of optimization. To ensure that the award exists in perpetuity and can be presented every three years, SIAG/OPT announced its Test of Time Award Campaign in August 2023 and set a fundraising goal of $25,000. The Development and Corporate Relations team partnered with SIAG/OPT leadership for these fundraising efforts, and we are very happy to announce that we reached the endowment goal this year. Thank you very much to everyone who financed the prize!

2024 also saw the establishment of the Hrabowski-Gates-Tapia-McBay (HGTM) Lecture Fund, which supports the MAA-SIAM-AMS HGTM Lecture. The lecture—jointly sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), SIAM, and the American Mathematical Society (AMS)—is presented annually to an individual who helps to systematically recruit, welcome, encourage, mentor, and support individuals from underrepresented groups in the U.S. This endowed fund was created through the philanthropy of Sylvester James Gates and Freeman Hrabowski III, and we offer our sincere thanks for their beneficence.

SIAM received several generous grants in 2024, both from continuing foundation partners and new connections that are dedicated to STEM programming. For example, the Society was recently awarded a Strategic Industry Grant from the C.H. Robinson Foundation to benefit the Postdoctoral Support Program, which provides funding for mentor opportunities for postdoctoral researchers. The C.H. Robinson grant will support two mentor/mentee pairs with a focus on climate change, sustainability, and/or supply chain optimization. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and we encourage any interested postdoc/mentor pairs to apply! The deadline for priority consideration is February 28, 2025.

SIAM’s Board of Trustees and Council have made many philanthropic gifts this year; they even undertook a matching gift campaign during the Board and Council meetings this summer. Due in part to the campaign and our generous match benefactors—former Board Chair Tim Kelley, SIAM Treasurer Sam Gubins, and SIAM President Sven Leyffer—our Board of Trustees reached 100 percent giving participation in 2024.

To honor these and other donors, we hosted our first-ever Donor Appreciation Reception at the 2024 SIAM Annual Meeting, which took place in Spokane, Wash., in July. It was wonderful to see many of you there! More than 70 donors gathered to celebrate, hear firsthand accounts from beneficiaries of their philanthropy, and toast the impressive generosity of the SIAM community. We will be holding our next Donor Appreciation Reception at AN25 in Montreal, with more details to come. We anticipate another joyful, robust gathering and look forward to hosting you!

Additionally, please join us on December 5 for Your Legacy, Your Way: a webinar about estate planning and gifts-in-will, hosted by the SIAM Development and Corporate Relations team. This free introductory session will provide a basic overview of available options, whether you are looking to create a will for the first time, intending to update your estate plans to include charitable giving, or just curious. You can register for the event at the associated online link.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this small sample of projects that SIAM’s Development and Corporate Relations team has pursued this past year. Our success is made possible only through your support, and we are honored to be a part of this vibrant, giving community. I hope that I’ve had a chance to thank you personally; if not, I hope that we can connect soon. I continue to enjoy and be inspired by the uniquely warm environment that is fostered by SIAM’s members, and I’m honored to continue our partnership to ensure that we have the necessary resources in place to sustain our important work.

If you’re considering a philanthropic donation to SIAM this year but haven’t yet made your gift, there’s still time! Gifts of all sizes have tremendous impact, and you can direct your contribution to your preferred area of support. To make a gift, visit SIAM’s online giving page or send a check payable to SIAM to the following address:

SIAM Development 
c/o Abby Addy 
3600 Market Street, 6th Floor 
Philadelphia, PA 19104 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me at (267)-648-3529 or aaddy@siam.org with any questions or comments, for assistance with your contribution, or just to chat. I look forward to connecting with you and wish you and your families a happy and healthy holiday season!