Andrew Joseph Majda (30 January 1949 – 12 March 2021) was an American mathematician and the Morse Professor of Arts and Sciences at the

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

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, th ...

. He was known for his theoretical contributions to partial differential equations as well as his applied contributions to diverse areas including

shock waves In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a med ...

combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combus ...

incompressible flow In fluid mechanics or more generally continuum mechanics, incompressible flow ( isochoric flow) refers to a flow in which the material density is constant within a fluid parcel—an infinitesimal volume that moves with the flow velocity. A ...

, vortex dynamics, and atmospheric sciences. Majda was listed as an

ISI highly cited researcher The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysis, ...

in mathematics.

Career

Born in

East Chicago, Indiana East Chicago is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 29,698 at the 2010 census. The city is home of the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, an artificial freshwater harbor characterized by industrial and manufacturing ac ...

, Majda received a B.S. degree in mathematics from

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

in 1970. He then received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from Stanford University in 1971 and 1973, respectively. His Ph.D. thesis advisor was Ralph S. Phillips. He began his scientific career as an instructor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences from 1973 to 1975. Prior to returning to the Courant Institute in 1994, he held professorships at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

during 1984–1994, the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

during 1978–1984, and the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

during 1976–1978. At Courant Institute, Majda has been instrumental in setting up the
Center for Atmosphere-Ocean Science
which aims to promote cross-disciplinary research with modern applied mathematics in

climate modelling Numerical climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the important drivers of climate, including atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the ...

and prediction.

Honors and awards

*The

Leroy P. Steele Prize The Leroy P. Steele Prizes are awarded every year by the American Mathematical Society, for distinguished research work and writing in the field of mathematics. Since 1993, there has been a formal division into three categories. The prizes have b ...

for Seminal Contribution to Research - 2016 *Lagrange Prize of ICIAM - 2015 *

Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics The Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics is a $5000 prize awarded, every three years, for an outstanding contribution to "applied mathematics in the highest and broadest sense." It was endowed in 1967 in honor of Norbert Wiener by MIT's m ...

- 2013 *Honorary Doctorate of Science and Honorary Professor,

Fudan University Fudan University () is a national public research university in Shanghai, China. Fudan is a member of the C9 League, Project 985, Project 211, and the Double First Class University identified by the Ministry of Education of China. It is als ...

, Shanghai, China - 2008 *Medal of the College de France - 2007 *The New York City Mayor's Award for Excellence in Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences - 2004 *Honorary Doctorate of Science,

- 2000 *Gibbs Lecturer 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, ...

- 1995 *National Academy of Sciences Prize in Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis - 1992 *

John von Neumann Lecture The John von Neumann Prize (until 2019 named John von Neumann Lecture Prize) was established in 1959 with funds from IBM and other industry corporations, and is awarded for "outstanding and distinguished contributions to the field of applied ma ...

Prize of

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 ...

- 1990 *Medal of the College de France - 1982 Majda was a member of National Academy of Sciences,

, American Physical Society, and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2013-02-02.

Books

*
Information theory and stochastics for multiscale nonlinear systems
' with Rafail V. Abramov, Marcus J. Grote,

, 2005. *
Vorticity and Incompressible Flow
' with Andrea L. Bertozzi,

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

, 2008. *
Nonlinear Dynamics and Statistical Theories for Basic Geophysical Flows
' with Xiaoming Wang,

, 2009. *
Filtering Complex Turbulent Systems
' with John Harlim,

, 2012. *
Introduction to Turbulent Dynamical Systems in Complex Systems
',

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

, 2016.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Majda, Andrew J. Purdue University alumni Stanford University alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Princeton University faculty Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty Fluid dynamicists PDE theorists 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 1949 births 2021 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Mathematicians from Indiana People from East Chicago, Indiana