Diane O'Leary and Rebecca Golden Will Give Key Lectures at Summer Meetings

Dianne P. O'Leary will deliver the prestigious Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), in early July in San Diego. In early August, Rebecca Goldin will deliver the Etta Z. Falconer Lecture at MathFest 2008, in Madison, Wisc.

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and SIAM selected O'Leary, a professor at the University of Maryland, in recognition of her research contributions in computational linear algebra and optimization, subjects that are at the interface of computer science and mathematics. Applications of her research in image processing, Newton's method, hidden Markov models, and other areas include information retrieval, computational biology, and quantum computing.

O'Leary's lecture is titled "A Noisy Adiabatic Theorem: Wilkinson Meets Schrodinger's Cat."

Golden was chosen as the Falconer lecturer to honor her contributions to mathematics, particularly symplectic geometry, and mathematics education. A professor at George Mason University, Goldin will speak about "The Use and Abuse of Statistics in the Media."

"Science and mathematics," Golden said, "are really everywhere, and I hope I can convey this perspective in my lecture at MathFest this summer."

Source: Association for Women in Mathematics, May 19, 2008.