George C. Papanicolaou

George C. Papanicolaou ( born January 23, 1943 in Athens ) is a Greek- American applied mathematician.

Life and work

Papanicolaou studied at Union College in Schenectady ( bachelor's degree ) and at New York University, where in 1967 he took his master's degree in 1969 at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University doctorate. He subsequently Assistant Professor, Associate Professor from 1973 and from 1976 professor. At the same time he was there Director of wave propagation and Applied Mathematics. From 1993 he was a professor at Stanford University, since 1997 when Robert Grimmett Professor of Mathematics. He has been a visiting scientist at Exxon, INRIA Rocquencourt in, at Caltech (2003/2004), the Institute for Advanced Study ( 1990, 1992 ), at the University of Paris Dauphine and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Hong Kong.

Papanicolaou dealt with wave propagation in inhomogeneous and disordered media, for example in geophysics (eg transport and wave propagation in porous media such problems as oil prospecting and extraction ), propagation of sound under water and electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere (including wireless communication networks ), tomography. In addition to the direct problem of wave propagation and the diffusion he also studied the inverse problem. He also dealt with non-linear waves, such as the nonlinear Schrödinger equation and turbulence (turbulent diffusion). In addition, he also deals with financial mathematics and stochastic (stochastic differential equations, partly in collaboration with Daniel Stroock, Harry Kesten and SRS Varadhan ).

He was Sloan Fellow (1974/1975) and Guggenheim Fellow ( 1983/1984 ). He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Athens (1987). In 1986 he was invited speaker at the ICM, Berkeley (Wave propagation and heat production in random media) and in 1998 he gave a plenary lecture at the ICM in Berlin ( Mathematical problems in geophysical wave propagation ). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences ( 2000). He is a Fellow of SIAM and in 2006 received the von Neumann price. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Papanicolaou is a U.S. citizen. He is married and has three children.

Writings

• Ludwig Arnold, Volker Wihstutz: Asymptotic analysis of the Lyapunov exponent and rotation number of the random oscillator and applications. University of Bremen, 1985.
• (Eds.): Random media. Springer, Berlin et al 1987, ISBN 3-540-96524-6.
• (Ed.): Hydrodynamic behavior and interacting particle systems. Springer, Berlin et al 1987, ISBN 3-540-96584- X.
• (Eds.): Wave propagation in complex media. Springer, Berlin et al 1998, ISBN 0-387-98309-0.
• Steffen Heinze, A. Stevens: Variational principles for propagation speeds in inhomogeneous media. Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences Leipzig, 1999.