Michael J. Shelley (born August 17, 1959) is an American applied mathematician who works on the modeling and simulation of complex systems arising in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

. This has included free-boundary problems in fluids and materials science, singularity formation in

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

, modeling

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

in the primary visual cortex, dynamics of complex and active fluids, cellular biophysics, and fluid-structure interaction problems such as the flapping of flags, stream-lining in nature, and flapping flight. He is also the co-founder and co-director of the Courant Institute's Applied Mathematics Lab. Shelley was born in

La Junta, Colorado La Junta is a home rule municipality in , the county seat of, and the most populous municipality of Otero County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,322 at the 2020 United States Census. La Junta is located on the Arkansas Ri ...

. He holds a BA in Mathematics from the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

(1981) and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

(1985). He was a postdoctoral researcher at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, and then joined the faculty of mathematics at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. In 1992 he joined the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

where he is the George and Lilian Lyttle Professor of Applied Mathematics as well as Professor of Neuroscience (NYU) and Professor of Mechanical Engineering (NYU-Tandon). In 2016 he also became a senior research scientist and group leader in biophysical modeling at the Center for Computational Biology (CCB) of the Flatiron Institute, a division of the Simons Foundation. In 2019 he was appointed Director of CCB.

Honors

* 1983 NASA Computational Fluid Dynamics Fellowship * 1989

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship * 1991 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator * 1998 Francois Frenkiel Award of the American Physical Society * 2001 Distinguished Chair of the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences * 2006 The Richard C. DiPrima Lecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute * 2006 Julian Cole Lectureship, Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics * 2007 Appointed the Lilian and George Lyttle Professor of Applied Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU * 2007 Elected Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

* 2009 Inaugural Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics * 2012 The Librescu Memorial Lecture, Virginia Tech College of Engineering * 2014 The Pelz Memorial Lecture, Rutgers University, Mechanical Engineering * 2015 The AMSI-ANZIAM Lecturer, Australia * 2015 Plenary Speaker, National Meeting of the Australian Mathematical Society * 2017 The Reiss Memorial Lectures, University of Delaware * 2019 Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences * 2022 Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shelley, Michael 1959 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Polytechnic Institute of New York University faculty Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty People from La Junta, Colorado Fellows of the American Physical Society