Pauline van den Driessche (born 1941)
is a British and Canadian
applied mathematician who is a
professor emerita in the department of mathematics and statistics at the
University of Victoria, where she has also held an affiliation in the department of computer science.
Her research interests include
mathematical biology
Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of the living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development a ...
,
matrix analysis, and
stability theory
In mathematics, stability theory addresses the stability of solutions of differential equations and of trajectories of dynamical systems under small perturbations of initial conditions. The heat equation, for example, is a stable partial diffe ...
.
Education and career
Van den Driessche earned bachelor's and master's degrees in 1961 and 1963 respectively from
Imperial College London. She completed her doctorate in 1964 from the
University College of Wales; her dissertation concerned
fluid mechanics.
She stayed on for a year in Wales as an assistant lecturer;
she was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Victoria in 1965, and retired in 2006.
[.]
Contributions
In
mathematical biology
Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of the living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development a ...
, van den Driessche's contributions include important work on
delay differential equations and on
Hopf bifurcations,
and the effects of changing population size and immigration on
epidemics.
She has also done more fundamental research in
linear algebra, motivated by applications in mathematical biology.
Her work in this area includes pioneering contributions to the theory of
combinatorial matrix theory Combinatorial matrix theory is a branch of linear algebra and combinatorics that studies matrices in terms of the patterns of nonzeros and of positive and negative values in their coefficients.
Concepts and topics studied within combinatorial matr ...
in which she proved connections between the sign pattern of a matrix and its stability,
as well as results on
matrix decomposition.
Awards and honors
In 2005, the journal ''
Linear Algebra and its Applications'' published a special issue in her honor.
[.] She was the 2007 winner of the
Krieger–Nelson Prize of the
Canadian Mathematical Society
The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) (french: Société mathématique du Canada) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. It serves the ...
,
[.] and in the same year became the inaugural
Olga Taussky-Todd Lecturer, an award given every four years at the
International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics The International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) is an international congress in the field of applied mathematics held every four years under the auspices of the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. T ...
by the
International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
The International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) is an organisation for professional applied mathematics societies and related organisations. The current (2020) President is Ya-xiang Yuan.
History
Until 1999 the Council was ...
and
Association for Women in Mathematics.
[.]
In 2013 she became a
fellow of the
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...
"for contributions to linear algebra and mathematical biology". She received the CAIMS Research Prize from the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society in 2019,
and the
2022 Hans Schneider Prize in Linear Algebra.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Van den Driessche, Pauline
1941 births
Living people
British computer scientists
British women computer scientists
British mathematicians
Canadian computer scientists
Canadian women computer scientists
British women mathematicians
Canadian women mathematicians
20th-century British mathematicians
21st-century British mathematicians
20th-century Canadian mathematicians
21st-century Canadian mathematicians
Alumni of Imperial College London
Alumni of Aberystwyth University
Academics of Aberystwyth University
Academic staff of the University of Victoria
Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
20th-century women mathematicians
21st-century women mathematicians
20th-century Canadian women scientists