The Springer Math Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In this month’s podcast, Ilka Agricola, a mathematician at the Phillips-Marburg University in Marburg, Germany, talks about the challenges mathematicians face while producing and using electronic scientific documents for research and teaching, especially in light of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence. She also talks about innovative actions in making mathematical content more accessible for the visually impaired, and shares insights into her journey in academia. Dr. Agricola is hosted by Lynn Brandon, Executive Publisher for Mathematics at Springer.
Photo: "Ilka Agricola (Philipps-Universität Marburg) vor der Universitätsbibliothek" By Thorsten Richter (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

In this episode, Camillo De Lellis, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton, engages in an interview with Nicola Gigli from the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati in Trieste, Italy. They delve into Nicola Gigli's personal journey in and out of mathematics, discussing how he arrived at the topics of his research and his enthusiasm for them. Throughout the conversation, they also explore the intriguing connection between the concepts of optimal transport and curvature of a space, a discovery that has given rise to a flourishing research field at the intersection of multiple areas of mathematics, making it a fascinating and fast-growing frontier of exploration.

Nicola Gigli obtained his PhD from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, specializing in functional and geometric analysis. In recognition of his outstanding achievements in diverse areas of mathematics, he was honored with the Oberwolfach Prize in 2010. Additionally, in 2019, he received the Ennio De Giorgi prize for his remarkable and original contributions to his field of research.

Camillo De Lellis earned his PhD in mathematics from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. His research focuses on calculus of variations, geometric measure theory, and fluid dynamics. Throughout his career, he has received numerous accolades, with the most recent being the Maryam Mirzakhani Prize awarded in the same year, recognizing his exceptional contributions to the mathematical sciences. 

Originally presented by the UNITEXT Springer Nature Webinars series, this interview has been specifically adapted for the podcast format.

Catherine Beneteau and Dmitry Khavinson are both mathematicians, they are married, work at the same university, and share similar research interests. 

In this special episode, we've invited them to share their experience with harmonizing research, love, parenthood, and career.

Catherine Beneteau is a Professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department at the University of South Florida in the United States. She was educated in Canada, at McGill University, where she got her bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1999 at the University at Albany, under the supervision of Boris Korenblum. Her main research interests are in complex function theory and mathematics education.

Dmitry Khavinson is a Distinguished Professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department at the University of South Florida. He obtained his PhD at Brown University after his undergraduate studies at Moscow State Pedagogical Institute in the ex-Soviet Union. His main research interests are in complex analysis, potential theory, and partial differential equations. Dmitry is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Analysis and Mathematical Physics. 

They will be hosted by Dorothy Mazlum, Senior Editor for Mathematics

Trachette L. Jackson earned her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington under the direction of Professor James D. Murray, one of the founding leaders in the field of Mathematical Biology.   Ten years later, after postdoctoral positions at the IMA and Duke University, she was promoted to Full Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan.  Dr. Jackson is an award-winning teacher-scholar whose research in mathematical oncology has received international attention.  In 2003, she became the second African American woman to receive the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Research Award in Mathematics.  In 2005, Dr. Jackson received the James S. McDonnell 21st Century Scientist Award, and in 2008 Diverse Magazine honored her as one of the year’s Emerging Scholars.  In 2010 she became the first woman to receive the Blackwell-Tapia Prize, which recognizes a mathematician who has contributed significantly to research and has served as a role model for mathematical scientists and students from underrepresented minority groups.  More recently, Dr. Jackson was voted into the inaugural class of Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Fellows, the 2021 class of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Fellows, and the inaugural class of Simon’s Foundation Fellows, an honor featured in the NY Times.
Dr. Jackson’s research lies within the overarching field of mathematical biology, which can be characterized by the use of sophisticated mathematical, statistical, and computational modeling techniques to facilitate a deep understanding of biology for human benefit and the mitigation of human harm. Within Mathematical Biology, she specializes in Computational Cancer Research or Mathematical Oncology.  Mathematical and computational modeling approaches have been applied to every aspect of tumor growth from mutation acquisition and tumorigenesis to metastasis and treatment response.  Dr. Jackson’s research focuses on developing mathematical methods to address critical questions associated with tumor progression and targeted therapeutics. Dr. Jackson has built her career on collaborative research and educational activities that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. She envisions that this type of research will eventually change the face of cancer research.

Lynn Brandon is Executive Editor for Mathematics, based in London, celebrating two decades with Springer in 2022. She manages a small team of editors and several journals, mostly in applied and computational mathematics.

Related Books and Journals and Springer homepage of the podcast: https://www.springer.com/gp/campaign/mathematics-podcasts  

Aslak Tveito is the Managing Director of Simula Research Laboratory in Oslo, Norway, and professor for scientific computing at the University of Oslo. He serves also as chairman of the board of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. His research is in numerical analysis, scientific computing, and the electrophysiology of the human heart. He cas co-authored three research monographs and two textbooks on scientific computing, co-edited seven books, and published more than 100 research papers. He is on the editorial board of Encyclopedia and Applied and Computational Mathematics.

Martin Peters is Executive Editor for Mathematics and CSE at Springer in Heidelberg, Germany, and handles book series such as Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, Texts in Computational Science and Engineering, Simula SpringerBriefs on Computing, and Moscow Lectures.

Related Books and Journals and Springer homepage of the podcast: https://www.springer.com/gp/campaign/mathematics-podcasts

Kathryn Leonard is a mathematician and computer scientist at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. She is currently both professor and Department Chair in the Department of Computer Science. In 2012, she received a Henry L. Alder Award for teaching from the Mathematical Associate of America, and in 2015, she received the AWM Service Award. Kathryn is the current president of the AWM and is also the director of the NSF-funded Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics. Kathryn studies geometric models for computer graphics, computer vision, and data analysis, with an emphasis on explainability.

Dahlia Fisch is an Editor of Mathematics at Springer in New York, where she coordinates a number of book series including the Association for Women in Mathematics series, Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Mathematics in Mind, and SpringerBriefs in Mathematics.

Related Books and Journals and Springer homepage of the podcast: https://www.springer.com/gp/campaign/mathematics-podcasts

Alfio Quarteroni is Professor of Numerical Analysis and Director of of the Laboratory for Modeling and Scientific Computing -- otherwise known as MOX -- at the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy. He is the founder (and first director) of MOX and of MATHICSE at EPFL, Lausanne, where he is Emeritus Professor. He is co-founder (and President) of MOXOFF, a spin-off company. His research interests concern Mathematical Modelling, Numerical  Analysis, Scientific Computing, and applications in fluid mechanics, geophysics, medicine, epidemiology, and the improvement of sports performance. His research group at EPFL has contributed to the preliminary design of Solar Impulse, the Swiss, long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project; they also carried out the mathematical simulation optimising the performances of the Alinghi yacht, twice winner of the America’s Cup. He authored or edited 37 books and contributed more than 400 articles to international scientific journals and conference proceedings. He also serves on many editorial boards of journals and book series.

He is a plenary speaker at ECM 2021, where he will give a talk on Mathematical Modeling of the Cardiac Function

Related Books and Journals and Springer homepage of the podcast: https://www.springer.com/gp/campaign/mathematics-podcasts

The International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, or ICIAM, is known as the largest congress in applied mathematics, held only once every four years. The first ICIAM took place in Paris in 1987; and then in Washington, D.C (1991), Hamburg (1995) and Edinburgh (1999). The next venues were Sydney (2003), Zürich (2007), Vancouver (2011), Beijing (2015), and Valencia (2019). ICIAM 2023 Tokyo is the 10th congress. The number of participants for the recent ICIAM congresses exceeded 3,000, and for ICIAM 2023, more than 4,700 participants have registered including online-only participants.

Have you ever been to Japan? In this episode, two Japanese mathematicians, Ken Hayami and Hisashi Okamoto, share some interesting background information that may enrich your experience at ICIAM 2023 Tokyo.
 
Ken Hayami, born in 1956, obtained his master’s degree in 1981 from the University of Tokyo and began his career as a researcher at the NEC Corporation. He obtained PhD degrees from the Wessex Institute of Technology (1991) and the University of Tokyo (1993), respectively. In 1993, he joined the faculty of the University of Tokyo and later he moved to NII/Sokendai, where he is now professor emeritus. Ken Hayami has been the president of the Japan SIAM since June 2023.

Hisashi Okamoto, born in 1956, obtained his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1985, supervised by Hiroshi Fujita. He previously held positions at the University of Tokyo and the Research Institute of Mathematics (Kyoto University), and is now at Gakushuin University in Tokyo. He was an invited speaker at the 1998 International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin.  Hisashi Okamoto has been the editor-in-chief of the Japan Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics since 2016.

In this episode, our guest is Alessio Figalli, Director of the Institute for Mathematical Research at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Professor Figalli completed his Ph.D. at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in Italy and at the École Normale Supérieure of Lyon in France. He has also worked as a researcher at universities in France, the United States, and Switzerland.

His achievements have been recognized with several prizes, including the Fields Medal in 2018 for his contributions to the theory of optimal transport, and the European Mathematical Society Prize in 2012 in recognition of his excellent contributions to mathematics.

In a lively conversation with Luigi Ambrosio, a Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Figalli discusses his early days in mathematics and his unique career path. He also comments on the differences in university systems among countries, how he manages his time with professional, personal, and family duties, the increasing importance of optimal transport in recent years, and his approach to problem-solving in mathematics.

Originally aired by the UNITEXT Springer Nature Webinars series, this interview has been specifically adapted for the podcast format.

In this episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Luigi Ambrosio, a Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, as our guest. Professor Ambrosio, who recently co-authored the new textbook "Lectures on Optimal Transport" with Elia Brué and Daniele Semola, engages in a lively conversation with Alfio Quarteroni, a Professor at Politecnico di Milano. During this special interview, which is hosted by Professor Quarteroni, Professor Ambrosio shares his insights on topics such as optimal transport, the evolution of mathematics in Italy, strategies for motivating young mathematicians, and unsolved problems in his field. Originally aired by the UNITEXT Springer Nature Webinars series, this interview has been specifically adapted for the podcast format.