Catherine Bandle (born 22 March 1943) is a Swiss mathematician known for her research on differential equations, including semilinear elliptic equations and reaction-diffusion equations, and for her book on isoperimetric inequalities. She is a professor emerita of mathematics at the University of Basel.

Education and career

Bandle completed her doctorate (Dr. math.) at

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

in 1971. Her dissertation, ''Konstruktion isoperimetrischer Ungleichungen der mathematischen Physik aus solchen der Geometrie'', concerned isoperimetric inequalities and was jointly supervised by Joseph Hersch and Alfred Huber. Like

Alice Roth Alice Roth (6 February 1905 – 22 July 1977) was a Swiss mathematician who invented the Swiss cheese set and made significant contributions to approximation theory. She was born, lived and died in Bern, Switzerland. Life Alice attended the Hö ...

before her, she received the ETH Silver Medal for her dissertation, and she continued at ETH Zurich for a

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 1974. She was the first woman mathematician and one of the earliest women to earn a habilitation at ETH Zurich. She became a professor at the University of Basel in 1975 and remained there until her retirement in 2003. She has studied destabilized elliptic equations with her friend and collaborator Maria Assunta Pozio.

Book

Bandle is the author of the book ''Isoperimetric Inequalities and Applications'' (Pitman, 1980). It was only the second book to study the applications of isoperimetric inequalities in mathematical physics, after the 1951 book ''Isoperimetric Inequalities in Mathematical Physics'' by George Pólya and

Gábor Szegő Gábor Szegő () (January 20, 1895 – August 7, 1985) was a Hungarian-American mathematician. He was one of the foremost mathematical analysts of his generation and made fundamental contributions to the theory of orthogonal polynomials and T ...

, and at the time of its publication was considerably more up-to-date on recent developments in the subject. In 2023, Bandle published the book ''Shape Optimization - Variations of Domains and Applications'' together with Alfred Wagner from RWTH Aachen University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bandle, Catherine 1943 births Living people Swiss mathematicians Swiss women mathematicians ETH Zurich alumni Academic staff of the University of Basel