More than 145 mathematicians participated in the 1st Biennial Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Pacific Northwest Section (SIAMPNWS) on October 27-29 that was hosted by the Department of Mathematics at Oregon State University. The program featured four plenary presentations, over 70 talks in 11 thematic sessions and more than 25 posters.
SIAMPNW was held in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Numerical Analysis Seminar (PNWNAS) which has been an annual event since 1987. Approximately, 35 OSU faculty and students presented talks at various research sessions.
Malgorzata Peszynska, professor of mathematics at OSU, led the conference organizing committee comprising mathematicians from Boeing, University of Washington, Portland State University and other places. Other OSU mathematicians who helped organize the conference were Associate Professor Nathan Gibson, Assistant Professor Elaine Cozzi, and Professors Mina Ossiander, Ralph Showalter, and Robert Higdon. The local SIAM student chapter of over 12 volunteers provided crucial logistics support for the meeting, which was abundantly praised by the participants.
Held at the Memorial Union and Strand Agricultural Hall, the conference featured plenary talks by mathematicians from the University of British Columbia, University of Washington, Boise State University and Oregon State. Professor Juan Restrepo from OSU mathematics gave a plenary talk, entitled "'How warm is it getting?' and other uncertainty tales."
The thematic sessions covered a wide range of areas in the field: applied analysis and fluids; numerical analysis; computational modeling and simulation; high performance computing techniques; nonlinear waves; modeling in life sciences; applied and computational algebra and geometry; uncertainty quantification; optimization and compressed sensing; and 3D modeling and remote sensing. Students also presented their research in a poster blitz on Saturday, October 28.
Speakers were from various universities and organizations across the Northwest as well as from other parts of the country and abroad including the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Intel, USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, Argonne National Laboratory, University of Michigan-Dearborn, University of Waterloo, Simon Fraser University and National University of Colombia at Medellin.
The purpose of the Pacific Northwest Section of SIAM is to bring together the different communities of the Pacific Northwest that are active in industrial and applied mathematics. Its goals are to enhance communication among its members, to promote collaboration for both basic research and applications of mathematics to industry and science, and to support the SIAM mission in the Pacific Northwest region of the US and Canada. SIAMPNWS serves the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, and the province of British Columbia.
