Franco Brezzi (born 29 April 1945 in

Vimercate Vimercate (; lmo, label= Brianzöö, Vimercaa ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Monza and Brianza, Lombardy, northern Italy. It is from Milan and from Monza. Its name (whose first finding dates back to the year 745) derives fro ...

) is an Italian mathematician.

Education

He graduated in 1967 at the Università di Pavia under the supervision of Enrico Magenes. He was full professor of Mathematical Analysis at the

Politecnico di Torino The Polytechnic University of Turin ( it, Politecnico di Torino) is the oldest Italian public technical university. The university offers several courses in the fields of Engineering, Architecture, Urban Planning and Industrial Design, and is co ...

from 1976 to 1977 and then from 1977 to 2006 at the Università di Pavia. He was a professor of Numerical Analysis at the Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS) in Pavia from 2006 until his retirement in 2015. Presently he is Emeritus Professor at IUSS and Associate Researcher at IUSS (Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori) of Italian CNR (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche)

Research

His research deals with, among other subjects, the theory and applications of the

finite element method The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat ...

in structural mechanics, fluid mechanics, and electrodynamics. Brezzi's best-known result is the independent derivation in 1974 of the Ladyschenskaja-Babuška-Brezzi condition, often called the inf-sup condition. The LBB condition is a sufficient condition for the numerical stability of mixed finite element problems with saddle point structure, such as the discretization of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations or the treatment of

Darcy's law Darcy's law is an equation that describes the flow of a fluid through a porous medium. The law was formulated by Henry Darcy based on results of experiments on the flow of water through beds of sand, forming the basis of hydrogeology, a branch of ...

in differential form. His doctoral students include

Annalisa Buffa Annalisa Buffa (born 14 February 1973) is an Italian mathematician, specializing in numerical analysis and partial differential equations (PDE). She is a professor of mathematics at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and holds th ...

and Alfio Quarteroni. Brezzi is serving as a managing editor for ''Mathematical Models & Methods in Applied Sciences'', as the editor-in-chief of ''Calcolo'' and of ''Numerische Mathematik'', and as a member of the editorial staffs of numerous journals.

Academy of Sciences

He is a member of the

Accademia dei Lincei The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the " Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in R ...

, of the

European Academy of Sciences European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

and of the Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere. He was elected in 2002 a fellow of the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM) and in 2015 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 soci ...

(SIAM).* He is a Highly Cited Researcher of the

ISI ISI or Isi may refer to: Organizations * Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a classical conservative organization focusing on college students * Ice Skating Institute, a trade association for ice rinks * Indian Standards Institute, former name of ...

Leadership positions

Brezzi was the President of the

Italian Mathematical Union The Italian Mathematical Union ( it, Unione Matematica Italiana) is a mathematical society based in Italy. It was founded on December 7, 1922 by Luigi Bianchi, Vito Volterra, and most notably, Salvatore Pincherle, who became the Union's first P ...

from 2006 to 2012. He was the Director of the Istituto di Analisi Numerica of the CNR from 1992 to 2002 and of the Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche of CNR from 2002 to 2012. He was a Member of the Executive Committee of the

European Mathematical Society The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The current ...

from 2009 to 2012, and then Vice-President from 2013 to 2016.

Awards

In 2004 he was awarded the Gauss-Newton gold medal of the ''International Association for Computational Mechanics'' (IACM) of the World Congress of Computational Mechanics in Beijing. In 2006 he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in 1986 in Berkeley. In 2006 he was made Commendatore al merito of the Italian Republic. In 2009 he was honored by the

as the ''John von Neumann Lecturer'' for 2009. In 2010 the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino awarded him the Gili Agostinelli Prize for mathematical applications in the physical or natural sciences. In 2012 he received the Blaise Pascal Medal for Mathematics for his contributions to the theory of finite element methods. In 2013 he received the ''Civica Benemerenza di San Siro'' with a gold medal from the city of Pavia. In 2014 in Barcelona he was awarded the Leonhard Euler Medal of the ''European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Science (ECCOMAS)''. In 2014 he was a Plenary Speaker at the ICM in Seoul with talk ''The great beauty of VEMs''. In 2016 he received the Ritz-Galerkin Medal of ECCOMAS in Crete, Grece. In 2017 he was chosen as Feng Kang Lecturer by the Beijing Academy of Sciences.

References

External links

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ICM2014 VideoSeries PL8: Franco Brezzi on Aug16Sat – YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brezzi, Franco 1945 births Living people People from Vimercate 20th-century Italian mathematicians 21st-century Italian mathematicians Numerical analysts Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics University of Pavia alumni Presidents of the Italian Mathematical Union