Suzanne Marie Lenhart (born November 19, 1954) is an American mathematician who works in partial differential equations, optimal control and mathematical biology. She is a Chancellor's Professor of mathematics at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

,2008-present Awards & Announcements, Department of Mathematics: Suzanne Lenhart Appointed Chancellor's Professor
Univ. of Tennessee Mathematics, retrieved 2015-06-07. See also "Suzanne Lenhart Elected AAAS Fellow", later on same page. an associate director for education and outreach at the

National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis is a research institute focused on the science of mathematics and biology, located on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, campus. Known by its acronym NIMBioS (pronounced NIM-bu ...

, and a part-time researcher at the

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...

Education and career

Lenhart grew up in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, and was educated in the Catholic school system there. She did her undergraduate studies at

Bellarmine College Bellarmine University (BU; ) is a private Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest ...

in Louisville, where Ralph Grimaldi encouraged her to prepare for graduate studies in mathematics and gave her additional tutoring in

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mat ...

. She entered graduate school at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...

not knowing what she would specialize in, but in her second year chose partial differential equations.. She completed her doctorate in 1981 under the supervision of Lawrence C. Evans, and immediately took a tenure-track faculty position at the University of Tennessee. She added a second part-time position at Oak Ridge in 1987.

Awards and honors

Lenhart was

AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer The Etta Z. Falconer Lecture is an award and lecture series which honors "women who have made distinguished contributions to the mathematical sciences or mathematics education". It is sponsored by the Association for Women in Mathematics and the Ma ...

in 1997, president of the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

in 2001–2003, and AWM/

SIAM Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

Sonia Kovalevsky Lecturer in 2010 "in recognition of her significant research in partial differential equations, ordinary differential equations, and optimal control". She was elected as a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2010, and became a Chancellor's Professor and SIAM Fellow in 2011. In 2013, she was selected as a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

(AMS) in the inaugural class. In 2017, she was selected as a fellow of the

in the inaugural class. In 2022, Lenhart was invited as an AAAS-AMS address selection committee member.

Selected publications

;Textbooks *. *. ;Research papers *. *. *. *.

References

External links

Home page
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lenhart, Suzanne Marie 1954 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Bellarmine University alumni University of Kentucky alumni University of Tennessee faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics Mathematicians from Kentucky 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women