Constantine Michael Dafermos ( Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Δαφέρμος; born May 26, 1941, Athens) is a Greek-American applied mathematician. He received a Diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (1964) and a Ph.D. in Mechanics from Johns Hopkins University under the direction of Jerald Ericksen (1967). He has been an Assistant Professor at Cornell University (1968-1971) and an Associate Professor (1971-1975) and Professor (1975-) in the Division of Applied Mathematics at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. Since 1984, he has been the Alumni-Alumnae University Professor at Brown. In recent years, his research has focused on nonlinear hyperbolic systems of

conservation law In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves over time. Exact conservation laws include conservation of energy, conservation of linear momentum, c ...

s whose solutions spontaneously develop singularities propagating as shock waves. In particular, he is studying the interplay between thermodynamics and analysis in the theory of these systems and he is analyzing the fundamental role of entropy as a stabilizing agent. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In 2016 he was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Awards

*Honorary Doctorate, University of Athens, 1987. *Honorary Doctorate, National Technical University (Greece), 1991. *Honorary Doctorate, University of Crete, 2001. *SIAM W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize, 2000. * Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics, 2016 Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics 2016
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Affiliations

*Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2001-. *Correspondent Member, Academy of Athens, 1988-. *Honorary Professor, Academia Sinica, China, 2004-. *Member, Board of Governors, Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), 1995-.

Notes

Sources

*Brown University, The Division of Applied Mathematics (http://www.dam.brown.edu/) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dafermos, Constantine Greek mathematicians National Technical University of Athens alumni Brown University faculty Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people 1941 births Scientists from Athens Johns Hopkins University alumni Cornell University faculty Greek emigrants to the United States