Chun Liu Honored by AMS for Cutting-Edge Contributions to Mathematics
Illinois Institute of Technology Professor of Applied Mathematics Chun Liu has been elected as a 2024 fellow for the American Mathematical Society for his outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics.
Liu is one of 40 mathematical scientists from across the globe who were elected as a 2024 AMS fellow, and he will be bestowed the honor at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Francisco on January 3–6, 2024.
AMS has been honoring fellows for the past 12 years, and the goals of the program are:
To create an enlarged class of mathematicians recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to the profession
To honor not only the extraordinary, but also the excellent
To lift the morale of the profession by providing an honor more accessible than those currently available
To make mathematicians more competitive for awards, promotion, and honors when they are being compared with colleagues from other disciplines
To support the advancement of more mathematicians in leadership positions in their own institutions and in the broader society
“It’s nice to be recognized by my colleagues, but this also gives visibility for the whole department and Illinois Tech,” says Liu, who also serves as the chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics. “It’s great recognition for the mathematics research that’s going on here at Illinois Tech.”
Liu says faculty researchers in the Department of Applied Mathematics not only delve into heavy mathematics theory, but also in how to apply that theory into a variety of fields, which makes the research that they conduct important and unusual. Mathematics researchers at Illinois Tech have made great contributions to fields such as data science, finance, engineering, biology, and materials science through collaborative research.
“The Department of Applied Mathematics at Illinois Tech is very strong in research with collaborators, both in and out of Illinois Tech, in many different areas,” Liu says. “For instance, more than 70 percent of the faculty in the department are doing research related to data sciences and machine learning.”
Liu’s research includes partial differential equations and calculus of variations, and their applications in complex fluids. Liu has published over 180 publications. His research projects have been continuously supported the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Energy, and various federal and international research foundations.
Liu has been the recipient of several awards, including Householder Lecturer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2019. He has also long served as editor for the SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis; Communications in Mathematical Sciences; Interfaces and Free Boundaries; Kinetic and Related Models; Analysis and Application; Journal of Mathematical Study; and Computational and Mathematical Biophysics (CMB).
“It is my pleasure to congratulate and welcome the new class of AMS fellows, honored for their outstanding contributions to the mathematical sciences and to our profession,” says Bryna Kra, AMS president. “This year’s class was selected from a large and excellent pool of candidates, highlighting the many ways in which our profession is advanced, and I look forward to working with them in service to our community.”
