May conference at MSU to draw international participants

Contact: Maridith Geuder

STARKVILLE, Miss.--A May 7-9 conference at Mississippi State is expected to draw more than 150 participants from 20 countries and feature more than 100 separate scientific presentations.

The eighth annual Conference on Differential Equations and Computational Simulations is co-sponsored by the university's department of mathematics and statistics and the mechanical engineering department at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Funding for the event is provided by the National Science Foundation and Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications, the largest U.S. institute funded by NSF.

"The unique feature of these conferences is the interaction between mathematics and engineering," said Ratnasingham Shivaji, a William L. Giles Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at MSU.

The conference is dedicated to Joe Thompson, an MSU Giles Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering and director of the campus-based Department of Defense Programming Environment and Training Center. He is the founding director of MSU's Engineering Research Center, now the High Performance Computing Collaboratory.

Among principal speakers are:

--Stanley Osher of the University of California at Los Angeles, a member of the National Academy of Sciences;

--Tinsley Oden of the University of Texas, a member of the National Academy of Engineering; and

Other speakers represent academic institutions from Michigan State and Oxford universities to Harvey Mudd College, as well as the U.S. Department of Energy and other agencies.

"The primary objective is to provide a joint forum where mathematicians, scientists and engineers from industries, federal laboratories and universities can exchange research and development ideas," Shivaji said.

For a detailed conference, visit www.msstate.edu/dept/math/events/de.conf/de2009.

NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information on the conference, contact Shivaji at shivaji@ra.msstate.edu.

For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.