The PI and the organizers are holding the "Variational and Topological Methods: Theory, Applications, Numerical Simulations, and Open Problems" conference during June 6-9, 2012, at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, AZ. This conference covers topics in variational and topological methods for nonlinear elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations (PDE), with two special emphasis sessions, in singular problems and in numerical simulations for nuclear physics. The scope of the conference will be fairly wide, to include theory, applications, and scientific computations, with emphasis on the two special session areas. The principal speakers, Monica Clapp (Instituto de Matemáticas, UNAM, Mexico), Pavel Drábek (Univerzita v Plzni, Czech Republic), Jacques Giacomoni (Université de Pau, France), Jean-Michel Rakotoson (Université de Poitiers, France) and Peter Takáè (Universität Rostock, Germany) have all committed to giving a series of keynote lectures. This format was beneficial to researchers at all levels attending the previous two conferences organized with the support of NSF in 2002 and 2007 in NAU. The conference website is http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmn3/var12/var12.html.
This award provides partial support to eligible participants, with priority given to underrepresented mathematicians, especially women, graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty. One of the goals of the conference organizers is to encourage young researchers by providing them an opportunity to listen to and interact with experts. It is a theme that there will be time in the schedule to allow this discussion, to include open problems for potential new research areas of mathematics that feature a blend of the analysis, scientific application, and numerical solution of the key relevant equations of our subject.
" was held at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, from June 6–9, 2012. International experts from over 20 countries attended, along with graduate students and new PhD. Five distinguished keynote speakers each gave two 1-hour talks, covering background, recent progress, and open problems in their respective areas of expertise. There were over 50 40-minute talks as well, organized in special session according to the area (analysis, applications, numerical simulations). The conference website contains abstracts of talks, as well as the slides from the keynote presentations and select other talks. Over 15 articles have been submitted for peer-reviewed publication in a conference proceedings, to appear in the Electronic Journal of Differential Equations. Concerning the two merit review criteria, there was a focus on open problems, applications, and numerical simulations. The inclusion of open problems by all presenters stimulated both future research directions for established researchers and gave ideas for starting a new research program to the graduate students and new PhD. The inclusion of applications maximizes the usefulness of the attendee's research, allowing for interdisciplinary work between mathematics and the sciences. The inclusion of numerical simulations at our predominantly analytical conference was of great benefit to analysts and scientific computation practioners alike. Many conjectures were investigated numerically, and ideas for possible new algorithms were discussed. Graduate students, new PhD, and underrepresented mathematicians were given priority in the distribution of travel support.
