May 8, 2007 8:00 AM

Math department accolades add up

UCLA's mathematics department earned stellar praise from the top mathematical society in the nation for being "an outstanding model of all that a mathematics department can be."

The American Mathematical Society (AMS) awarded the mathematics department its 2007 Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department and applauded it for creating "a comprehensive vision for its undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral training programs that involves important interactions with the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM). Through these unusually large training programs, UCLA has become one of the biggest pipelines to mathematical careers in the United States."

The annual award goes to a mathematics department that has distinguished itself by undertaking an innovative or particularly effective program of value to the mathematics community or to society.

To celebrate, more than 100 faculty and postdoctoral scholars assembled in front of IPAM for a photograph. (To see it, go to today.ucla.edu and click on the story under News.) The celebratory mood was heightened April 26 by a Fields Medalists Symposium, held in honor of UCLA's Terence Tao's winning the medal, often described as the "Nobel Prize in Mathematics." In the works is a spring barbecue for faculty and staff to bask in the achievements of a spectacular year.

"I'm telling everyone I meet," said an enthused Christoph Thiele, professor and chair of the mathematics department. "The AMS is the best mathematical society of its kind in the world. We are very honored by this award."

AMS praised UCLA's "first-rate faculty of internationally recognized mathematicians" and took note of the "tremendous growth" in the past 10 years in the department's undergraduate and graduate programs. The department attracts many of the best graduate students in California, the U.S., Europe and Asia, Thiele said. Among its many achievements are:

• More than 1,000 scholars a year participate in interdisciplinary IPAM programs that bring together mathematicians and scientists from biology, the physical sciences, medicine, engineering and other fields, as well as industry and national laboratories. IPAM recently won a five-year renewal grant from the National Science Foundation, with a 36% funding increase.
• In 2000, the department's graduate program was awarded a $5-million NSF grant for a program, directed by Professor Robert Greene, that initiates changes in the way professional mathematicians are trained, promoting interaction between mathematics and other fields. It started with 112 students and will have an estimated 195 students this coming fall.

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