Tasso Joost Kaper (born June 25, 1964) is an American mathematician at Boston University, where he chairs the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. His research concerns dynamical systems and applied mathematics. [1]
Boston University is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has been historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church.
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in a geometrical space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a pipe, and the number of fish each springtime in a lake.
Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as science, engineering, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical science and specialized knowledge. The term "applied mathematics" also describes the professional specialty in which mathematicians work on practical problems by formulating and studying mathematical models. In the past, practical applications have motivated the development of mathematical theories, which then became the subject of study in pure mathematics where abstract concepts are studied for their own sake. The activity of applied mathematics is thus intimately connected with research in pure mathematics.
Kaper's father is Hans G. Kaper, a Dutch-born retired mathematician at Argonne National Laboratory. [2] [3] Tasso Kaper did his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1986. [1] He earned a Ph.D. in 1992 from the California Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Stephen Wiggins. [4] On finishing his doctorate, he joined the faculty at Boston University, where he has remained. He was editor-in-chief of SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems from 2005 to 2011, when he became department chair. [1]
Hans Gerard Kaper is a Dutch-American mathematician who worked for many years at Argonne National Laboratory until his retirement in 2008. He continues to hold adjunct professorships in mathematics and statistics at Georgetown University and in music at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he has been a long-term collaborator on the UIUC Computer Music Project.
Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by the University of Chicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy located in Lemont, Illinois, outside Chicago. It is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest.
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. The university is composed of an undergraduate college, various graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees organized into five academic research divisions and seven professional schools. Beyond the arts and sciences, Chicago is also well known for its professional schools, which include the Pritzker School of Medicine, the Booth School of Business, the Law School, the School of Social Service Administration, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, the Divinity School and the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies. The university holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings.
In 2009, both Tasso and Hans Kaper were simultaneously honored as fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. [2] In 2012, Kaper became one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society. [5]
A fellow is a member of a group of learned people which works together in pursuing mutual knowledge or practice. There are many different kinds of fellowships which are awarded for different reasons in academia and industry. These often indicate an different level of scholarship.
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is an academic association dedicated to the use of mathematics in industry. SIAM is the world's largest professional association devoted to applied mathematics, and roughly two-thirds of its membership resides within the United States. Founded in 1951, the organization began holding annual national meetings in 1954, and now hosts conferences, publishes books and scholarly journals, and engages in lobbying in issues of interest to its membership. The focus for the society is applied, computational, and industrial mathematics, and the society often promotes its acronym as "Science and Industry Advance with Mathematics". Members include engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, both those employed in academia and those working in industry. The society supports educational institutions promoting applied mathematics.
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, advocacy and other programs.
