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SIAM Announces 2025 Major Prize Recipients

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) has announced the 2025 recipients of its major prizes and awards. The awards will be presented at the following conferences: the 2025 SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE25), which took place March 3-7 in Fort Worth, Texas; the Third Joint SIAM/CAIMS Annual Meetings (AN25), happening July 28-August 1 in Montréal, Québec, Canada; and the 2026 International Conference on Scientific Computation and Differential Equations (SciCADE), to be held from June 29-July 3, 2026, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Awardees will be recognized during the conferences for their research contributions, lifetime achievements, and service to the field.

SIAM congratulates these 28 prize recipients for their hard work, dedication, and impressive contributions, which strengthen and enhance the landscape of applied mathematics, computational science, and data science worldwide. SIAM would also like to thank all the nominators who recognized their colleagues for their accomplishments.

Yongjie Jessica Zhang, Carnegie Mellon University, United States

AWM-SIAM Kovalevsky Lecture

Yongjie Jessica Zhang is a distinguished scholar renowned for her pioneering work in computational geometry and finite element methods, with profound impacts across biomedical and engineering applications. As a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, she has advanced meshing techniques that enable precise simulations in complex domains that appear in medical imaging and biological modeling. Dr. Zhang's innovative research on isogeometric analysis has set new standards in numerical accuracy and computational efficiency. Her numerous publications, leadership roles, and accolades, including her status as a fellow of several scientific societies, underscore her dedication to advancing the field and inspiring the next generation of computational scientists. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25 with an associated lecture.

Mason Porter, University of California, Los Angeles, United States 

George Pólya Prize for Mathematical Exposition

The 2025 George Pólya Prize for Mathematical Exposition is awarded to Mason Porter for his outstanding exposition of the mathematical sciences to audiences at all levels and interests, including review articles in networks, complex systems, and dynamics. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25.

Patrick E. Farrell, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Germund Dahlquist Prize

The 2025 Germund Dahlquist Prize is awarded to Patrick E. Farrell for broad, creative, and groundbreaking contributions to numerical solutions of partial differential equations, and the design and analysis of algorithms and software for scientific computing. This prize will be awarded at SciCADE 2026.

Timothy A. Davis, Texas A&M University, United States

I. E. Block Community Lecture

The I. E. Block Community Lecture, to be given by Timothy A. Davis of Texas A&M University on collecting and visualizing matrices and how he utilizes these techniques to create artwork from music, is free and open to the public. Dr. Davis is a professor in the computer science and engineering department at Texas A&M University and a Master Consultant for MathWorks. He is best known for creating SuiteSparse, a widely-used suite of sparse matrix algorithms and software integrated into applications like MATLAB, Apple devices, Julia, Facebook/Meta, Google Street View, Pokémon Go, and more. He also developed the reference implementation for GraphBLAS, enabling graph algorithms in linear algebra. A 2013 SIAM Fellow, 2014 ACM Fellow, and 2016 IEEE Fellow, he has received honors such as the 2018 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation and the 2021 INFORMS Computing Society Prize. He currently serves as an associate editor for ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software. The talk, which is intended to encourage public appreciation of the excitement and vitality of science by reaching students, teachers, and members of the local community, will be uploaded to YouTube following the event happening at SIAM AN25. More details will be available in coming months. 

Omar Ghattas, The University of Texas at Austin, United States

Ivo & Renata Babuška Prize (Inaugural Prize)

The 2025 Ivo and Renata Babuška Prize is awarded to Omar Ghattas for groundbreaking interdisciplinary contributions to the theory and algorithms of Bayesian inverse problems, and their high-impact application across the geosciences. This prize was awarded at SIAM CSE25 with an associated lecture.

Erin Carson, Charles University, Czechia

James H. Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing

The 2025 James H. Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing is awarded to Erin Carson for her impactful contributions to the performance and stability of mixed-precision numerical linear algebra. This prize was awarded at SIAM CSE25 with an associated lecture.

Sergio Conti (University of Bonn, Germany), Stefan Mueller (University of Bonn, Germany), and Michael Ortiz (California Institute of Technology, United States)

Jerald L. Ericksen Prize (Inaugural Award)

The 2025 Jerald L. Ericksen Prize is awarded to Sergio Conti, Stefan Mueller, and Michael Ortiz for their paper on ‘Data Driven Problems in Elasticity’, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 229 (2018), 79-2013, which influenced a new direction for applied mathematics. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25 with an associated lecture.

Marsha Berger, New York University & Flatiron Institute, United States 

John von Neumann Prize

The 2025 John von Neumann prize is awarded to Marsha Berger for her foundational work in adaptive mesh refinement and embedded boundary methods for partial differential equations (PDEs). Dr. Berger has been a leader in these areas, with important contributions to method development, theoretical stability and accuracy results, efficient software for serial and high-performance systems, and applications to science and engineering including aerodynamics, astrophysics, cosmology, plasma physics, subsurface flow, engine design, and tsunami modeling. Dr. Berger’s work has fundamentally advanced simulation methodology for PDEs. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25 with an associated lecture.

Alfio Quarteroni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy & EPFL, Switzerland

Ralph E. Kleinman Prize

The 2025 Ralph E. Kleinman Prize is awarded to Alfio Quarteroni for his exceptional contributions to mathematical modeling, scientific computing, computational fluid dynamics, machine learning, profound impact on a wide range of applications, and outstanding leadership in bringing mathematics into practice. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25.

Principal Authors of the deal.ll project

SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering

  • Daniel Arndt, Oak Ridge National Lab, United States
  • Wolfgang Bangerth, Colorado State University, United States
  • Bruno Blais, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
  • Marc Fehling, Charles University, Czechia
  • Rene Gassmoeller, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany
  • Timo Heister, Clemson University, United States
  • Luca Heltai, University of Pisa, Italy
  • Guido Kanschat, Heidelberg University, Germany
  • Martin Kronbichler, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
  • Matthias Maier, Texas A&M University, United States
  • Peter Munch, Technical University of Berlin, Germany
  • Jean-Paul Pelteret, independent researcher
  • Bruno Turcksin, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States
  • David Wells, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States

The 2025 SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering is awarded to the Principal Authors of the deal.II project for their highly impactful library supporting finite element calculations. The software achieved a very high standard of software quality and modularity by providing packaged algorithms and data structures in a comprehensive and well-documented manner that enables and elevates whole communities to achieve more computationally advanced models than they could possibly otherwise. This prize was awarded at SIAM CSE25 with an associated lecture.

Richard J. Allen, Pfizer, United States

SIAM Industry Prize (Inaugural Award)

The 2025 SIAM Industry Prize is awarded to Richard J. Allen for developing numerous quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) models for drug development, particularly for COVID-19. The model and code were shared to help others in both academia and industry. The model was used to predict several key questions, such as the efficacy of the anti-viral treatment when dosed after the peak viral load, the optimal duration of treatment, and the level of benefit to patients. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25 with an associated lecture.

Tamara G. Kolda, MathSci.ai, United States

SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession

The 2025 SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession is awarded to Tamara G. Kolda in recognition of her extensive leadership and service to multiple applied mathematics communities. Dr. Kolda’s SIAM impacts span several areas, including pioneering support of data science through SIAM  journal and activity group development, strong leadership though activity group officer positions, board of trustees and committee service, and significant conference organization. Dr. Kolda’s impact is also seen in her promotion of equity, diversity, and inclusion through her work with the Association for Women in Mathematics, her organization of events to support women, including the Rising Stars Workshop series, and in her active mentoring of young mathematicians from historically underrepresented communities. For the National Academies she led an initiative on Illustrating the Impact of Mathematics. Through her thoughtful considerations, Dr. Kolda’s presence in any organization elevates its overall impact, and her tireless efforts will leave a long-lasting mark on our profession. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25.

Marius Tucsnak, University of Bordeaux, France

W. T. & Idalia Reid Prize

The 2025 W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize is awarded to Marius Tucsnak for his fundamental work on the mathematical analysis and control of fluid-structure interaction and for his deep contributions to control theory and partial differential equations. This prize will be awarded at SIAM AN25 with an associated lecture.