Barbara Niethammer (born 1967) is a German mathematician and materials scientist who works as a professor at the

Hausdorff Center for Mathematics The Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM) is a research center in Bonn, formed by the four mathematical institutes of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Mathematical Institute, Institute for Applied Mathematics, Institute for ...

at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

.Faculty profile

, retrieved 2016-06-30. Her research concerns

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a Multivariable calculus, multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be sol ...

s for physical materials, and in particular the phenomenon of

Ostwald ripening Ostwald ripening is a phenomenon observed in solid solutions or liquid sols that describes the change of an inhomogeneous structure over time, i.e., small crystals or sol particles dissolve, and redeposit onto larger crystals or sol particles ...

by which particles in liquids grow over time.

Education and career

Niethammer completed her PhD in 1996 at the

, under the supervision of

Hans Wilhelm Alt Hans Wilhelm Alt (born 1945, Hilden) is a German mathematician, specializing in partial differential equations and their applications. Alt received his ''Abitur'' in 1965 from the prestigious secondary school Helmholtz-Gymnasium Hilden. In 1971 h ...

. Her dissertation was ''Approximation of Coarsening Madels by Homogenization of a Stefan Problem''. After postdoctoral research at the

Courant Institute The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

, she returned to Bonn for her

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in 2002, after which she became in 2003 a professor at the

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

. She moved to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 2007, where she was a fellow of

St Edmund Hall St Edmund Hall (sometimes known as The Hall or informally as Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university ...

. In 2012 she returned as a professor to the University of Bonn.

Recognition

Niethammer won the Richard von Mises Prize of the

Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik ("Society of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics"), often referred to by the acronym GAMM, is a German society for the promotion of science, founded in 1922 by the physicist Ludwig Prandtl and th ...

in 2003 for her work on Ostwald ripening, and the

Whitehead Prize The Whitehead Prize is awarded yearly by the London Mathematical Society to multiple mathematicians working in the United Kingdom who are at an early stage of their career. The prize is named in memory of homotopy theory pioneer J. H. C. Whiteh ...

of the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...

in 2011 "for her deep and rigorous contributions to material science, especially on the Lifshitz–Slyozov–Wagner and Becker–Doering equations". She was an

invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians This is a list of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers. Being invited to talk at an International Congress of Mathematicians has been called "the equivalent, in this community, of an induction to a hall of fame." ...

in 2014.ICM Plenary and Invited Speakers since 1897
retrieved 2016-06-30.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niethammer, Barbara 1967 births Living people 20th-century German mathematicians German materials scientists Women mathematicians Women materials scientists and engineers University of Bonn alumni Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin Fellows of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Academic staff of the University of Bonn 21st-century German mathematicians