2023

Oliver Knill

Preceptor and Digital Media Specialist, Harvard University

Areas: Computational Thinking, Education, Geometry, Mathematics

Mathematica is vital to Oliver Knill’s teaching and research. In teaching, it produces professional graphics for handouts, facilitates visualizations and animations, and serves as a platform for innovative student projects. It’s also essential for vetting assignments and examples, enabling a quick search for appropriate problems for both homework and exams. Knill has employed it to design 3D printable objects, generate high-resolution animations and illustrate musical concepts like Markov chain–generated music.

In his research, Knill’s primary laboratory is Mathematica. Currently, he is delving deeper into discrete geometry, probability, spectral theory and linear algebra. He is thrilled about uncovering previously undiscovered relationships and enhancing proofs with code. This allows any curious individual to explore the underlying structure. Mathematica code is close to natural language, acting as a runnable pseudocode. While examples can elucidate a theorem, providing code that showcases it using random structures is not only thrilling but also validates the result’s efficacy.

2023

Márcio Rosa

Professor of Mathematics, IMECC-UNICAMP

Areas: Education, Mathematics, Mathematics Courseware Design

For 20 years, Márcio Rosa has been making pedagogical innovations on the principle that university students should be using software, including the Wolfram Cloud, to continue their education in higher mathematics. He believes students should be trained to use software as a tool to aid their endeavors rather than learning to replicate the software’s functions. The geometric approach is reinforced so that the student, when studying and solving problems, is able to produce images with software and interpret them. Rosa has published various articles and supervised theses based on his experience and unique approach to mathematics education.

2023

J. William Helton

Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, University of California San Diego

Areas: Geometry, Mathematics, Software Engineering

J. William Helton’s group developed the package NCAlgebra for doing general-purpose noncommutative algebra in Mathematica. It began around 1990 and has been extended continually since then. From his work at the origins of noncommutative geometry and H-infinity control, Helton kept seeing such noncommutative formulas and hoping computer algebra could help. So, with Bob Miller, he started NCAlgebra and developed algorithms to find out. Around the year 2000, linear control theory shifted away from equalities to inequalities, e.g. from Riccati equations to linear matrix inequalities. This motivated Helton and a few others to begin what has developed into an elegant theory of noncommutative inequalities, to wit, a noncommutative version of real algebraic geometry. NCAlgebra seriously accelerated (and was accelerated by) this development.

A booming area full of noncommutative algebra is quantum information theory, and that is the main direction of current NCAlgebra development. Major contributions to NCAlgebra are being made by Mauricio de Oliveira and have also come from Mark Stankus and from many University of California San Diego students.

2021

Bruno Buchberger

Professor Emeritus, Johannes Kepler University Linz

Areas: Education, Mathematics, Mathematics Courseware Design, Software Development

Bruno Buchburger is a professor of computer mathematics at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. He is internationally known for his algorithmic theory of Gröbner bases. In recent years, Buchberger established the automated reasoning system Theorema and implemented it with his coworkers and students within Mathematica. Buchberger also contributed to the development of symbolic computation and computer algebra by founding and building up the Journal of Symbolic Computation, the Research Institute for Symbolic Computation (RISC), the Softwarepark Hagenberg and the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria.

2021

Jang-Hoon Lee

Professor of Mathematics, Paju Girls' High School

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Computational Thinking, Education, Mathematics

Jang-Hoon Lee is a professor of mathematics at Paju Girls’ High School and the most famous Mathematica user in South Korea. He has introduced Wolfram’s software to millions of users and extensively incorporated it to his teaching. This includes developing an online Mathematica textbook for his students, called Mathematica LAB. He also opened the Mathought.com website and creates math content using Mathematica for Naver.com, where he has 20 thousand subscribers and 6.5 million cumulative views. Due to this and other initiatives, he has won the Korea Mathematics Education Award from the Ministry of Education of South Korea and the Science Teacher of the Year Award from the Ministry of Science and Technology Information and Communication of South Korea.

2021

Enrique Vílchez Quesada

Professor, Computer Science School of the National University of Costa Rica

Areas: Courseware Development, Education, Mathematics, Programming

Enrique Vílchez Quesada teaches courses in mathematics, operations research and programming fundamentals. His research is primarily associated with different activities and projects related to the development of computerized educational software and materials. He has served as coordinator of the systems engineering area and deputy director of the Computer Science School of the National University of Costa Rica. Enrique has received several distinctions in Costa Rica for his outstanding performance and professional career in teaching and research. He is an associate member of the Latin American Committee for Educational Mathematics (CLAME) and the author of more than 50 scientific and dissemination articles in the areas of mathematics and educational informatics.

2021

Virginia Tech Math Emporium

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Courseware Development, Education, Mathematics, Software Development

Virginia Tech’s Math Emporium was established over 20 years ago. Over the years, nearly eight thousand students have been served through the Math Emporium each semester, in courses ranging from precalculus to geometry and mathematics of design. Many peer institutions have adopted the emporium model, which uses computer-based resources and emphasizes active learning and retention. Mathematica has served as the foundation for Virginia Tech’s Math Emporium. Quiz questions are created as modules, allowing for thousands of variations for a single “question.” An in-house package has been built and expanded over the years, housing thousands of functions, from formatting to building XML files, for use in the Math Emporium testing system. Additionally, Mathematica has been used to create portions of the Math Emporium’s online textbooks and to conduct assessments for the department of mathematics.

Award accepted by Jessica Schmale, senior mathematics instructor.

2020

Dr. Ambar Jain

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal

Areas: Education, Mathematics, Mathematics Courseware Design

Ambar Jain is a professor, researcher and developer who uses Mathematica and the Wolfram Language in all spheres of his profession. In 2015, he founded the Center for Research in Advanced Technologies for Education in Science, where he developed Examineer, an assessment engine for educators by educators. Examineer uses the Wolfram Language in the backend for authoring e-learning and assessment content and delivering them in the form of quizzes. He has also co-created a course for physics undergraduates titled Physics through Computational Thinking that uses Mathematica for teaching computational thinking using examples from physics. Many of his students use the Wolfram Cloud for performing physics computations. He is also engaged in several research projects where he uses the Wolfram Language for symbolic calculations, numeric computations and machine learning.

2020

Mike Weimerskirch

University of Minnesota

Areas: Education, Mathematics, Mathematics Courseware Design, Software Development

Mike Weimerskirch is a mathematics professor who incorporates Mathematica heavily in his education workflow. After using Mathematica in his own graduate-school courses, he began applying it as a professor to help improve his students’ understanding in mathematics courses. As the director of educational innovation for the School of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota, he has helped build the Minnesota Online Learning System (MOLS) for generating and grading homework and quizzes. In addition to providing a better educational interface for faculty and students, the system has improved placement exam outcomes and helped increase the number of students that successfully complete freshman mathematics courses.

2019

Todd Feitelson

Math Teacher, Millbrook School

Areas: 3D Printing, Computer Graphics and Visual Arts, Mathematics, Mathematics Courseware Design

Todd Feitelson teaches mathematics at Millbrook School in Millbrook, New York, and has been using Mathematica to build a new hands-on curriculum for his high-school students. His unique projects and problem sets bring math to life, using the Wolfram Language’s 3D modeling and printing capabilities to design and print polyhedrons, chessboards, rockets and more. Feitelson has presented his results at several conferences, showcasing Mathematica’s usefulness for creating these interactive problem sets.

2019

Chris Hanusa

Associate Professor of Mathematics, PhD, CUNY Queens College

Areas: 3D Printing, Computer Graphics and Visual Arts, Mathematics, Mathematics Courseware Design

Chris Hanusa is a professor at Queens College in Queens, New York, teaching classes on calculus, mathematical modeling, graph theory and more. He makes extensive use of Mathematica to help his students with complex calculations and for visualizing difficult concepts. In his Math with Mathematica course, Hanusa works with students on several Mathematica-based projects, including 3D modeling and printing. He gives regular talks on teaching with Mathematica, emphasizing the importance of the Wolfram Language’s 3D printing capabilities.

2018

Bruce Colletti

Operations Researcher, Cox Automotive Inc
Adjunct Professor, Northern Virginia Community College

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Defense Analysis, Education, Industrial Engineering, Mathematics, Operations Research, System Modeling

Dr. Colletti is an operations researcher and former Air Force major who has used Wolfram technologies extensively for research in defense and homeland security analysis. He used Mathematica to finish his dissertation on group theory, as well as for a number of subsequent publications over the following two decades. Consulting for many classified government projects, he utilizes the Wolfram Language and Wolfram SystemModeler to develop large-scale analytic models for personnel, logistics and program evaluation. Dr. Colletti has guided the research of eight master’s and doctoral students at several universities, and he has won awards for his work instructing mathematics courses with the Wolfram Language at Northern Virginia Community College.

2016

Ruth Dover

Illinois Math & Science Academy

Areas: Calculus, Education, Mathematics

Ruth Dover is a math instructor at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in Aurora, Illinois. As an early adopter of Mathematica, in 1991 she oversaw its installation on IMSA computer lab machines for use with calculus courses for precollege students. Dover was a primary courseware contributor for the Mathematica Teacher’s Edition, shaping how instructors used it to teach math courses. Dover has taught thousands of students how to use Mathematica and the Wolfram Language over the course of her career. She is the author of two Wolfram Demonstrations and was the 1998 recipient of a Wolfram High School Grant.

2015

Mark Adler

Project Manager, Low Density Supersonic Decelerator Project

Areas: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics

Mark Adler is best known for his work in the field of data compression as the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, and as co-author of the zlib compression library and gzip. He was also the Spirit Cruise Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission and is an instrument-rated private pilot, a certified scuba diver, and an amateur theater actor. Mark has used Mathematica for decades, including during his work on the Mars Exploration Mission. Using NDSolve and numeric integers, the team simulated entry through a variety of changing conditions to mitigate risk and more accurately predict a successful landing.

2014

Yves Papegay

French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Computer Science, Education, Mathematics

Yves Papegay integrates new Wolfram technologies into his workflow and has used Wolfram Development Platform (formerly Wolfram Programming Cloud) and Mathematica on Raspberry Pi for his robotics projects. Papegay is also a Wolfram certified instructor and develops industrial Mathematica tools for C code generation in the aerospace and energy industries for companies including Airbus and French energy company, EDF.

2014

Bruce Torrence

Randolph-Macon College

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Authoring in Mathematica, Computer Graphics and Visual Arts, Computer-Aided Education, Education, Mathematics

Bruce Torrence is the author of numerous Mathematica books and articles including The Student’s Introduction to Mathematica, a popular general reference book for students and educators. In addition to publishing dozens of articles on the use of Mathematica in education and research, Torrence recently completed a five-year editorship at Math Horizons and is a Wolfram Science Summer School alumni.

2013

Prof. Dr. Frank Brand

Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany

Areas: Finance, High-Performance and Parallel Computing, Industrial Engineering Economics, Mathematics

Physicist Frank Brand teaches courses in business mathematics, statistics, econometrics, and optimization using Mathematica. He has used Mathematica for many years, starting with his PhD thesis, “Optimization of Complex Optical Systems with Evolution Strategies.” Frank’s achievements using Mathematica in his research include the automatic construction of quality functions related to optimization problems. He also used Wolfram technology to write books—very recently he published a book on the analysis of complex systems, based on applications of graph theory.

2013

Grigory Fridman

Saint Petersburg State University of Economics

Areas: Computer Science, Education, Finance, Mathematics, Risk

Grigory Fridman is Head of the Department of Economical Cybernetics and Mathematical Methods for Economics at Saint Petersburg State University of Economics in Saint Petersburg, Russia. With his help StPSUE became the first university in Russia to offer access to Mathematica to all faculty and students.

2013

Bart ter Haar Romeny

Eindhoven University of Technology

Areas: Biotechnology, Image Processing, Mathematics

A professor in biomedical image analysis, Bart ter Haar Romeny uses Mathematica to design brain-inspired image analysis methods for computer-aided diagnosis. He is an enthusiastic teacher, and introduced Mathematica as a design tool in the curriculum for all students of his department and in most projects in his group. He advocates that Mathematica is ideal for designing innovative algorithms and for “playing with the math.” His PhD students van Almsick, Duits, Franken, (now Professor) Florack, Janssen, and Bekkers substantially contributed to the Mathematica packages on brain-inspired computing. He cochaired with Markus van Almsick the International Mathematica Symposium 2008 in Maastricht and teaches a popular national course on biologically inspired computing (book written in Mathematica), which was thrice awarded the BME Teaching Award.

2013

Keith Stroyan

Professor of Mathematics, University of Iowa

Areas: Education, Mathematics

As a mathematics professor at the University of Iowa, Keith Stroyan was an early adopter of Mathematica in calculus courses, reaching around 6,000 students and 100 teaching assistants in 24 years. In 2005, he was awarded Teacher of the Year by the Mathematical Association of America based on his work developing Mathematica course materials. Stroyan also conducted an early study showing that students who used Mathematica in calculus courses performed better in subsequent courses, even in traditional courses without much technology. In addition to these achievements, Stroyan developed one of the first custom kernel Mathematica programs, Calculus Wiz, and published the first CDF in a scientific journal. His work on iMultiCalc 2013 CDF edition continues to push the boundaries in delivering textbook content.

2012

Richard Anderson

Computer Scientist

Areas: High-Performance and Parallel Computing, Mathematics

Richard Anderson is recognized for his pioneering use of gridMathematica to explore network properties using percolation and random graph theories. He has developed gridMathematica applications that use a probabilistic approach along with large-scale multiprocessor computing techniques to explore the underlying structure of complex networks. This work led to the development of new methodologies to identify nodes that are critical to network cohesion and connectivity.

2012

Rubén Berrocal and Marisa Talavera

National Secretary for Science and Technology (Berrocal), Director of Innovation in Learning (Talavera), Panama Government

Areas: Education, Mathematics

Rubén Berrocal and Marisa Talavera are recognized for revolutionizing the teaching of mathematics and science in Panama by incorporating Wolfram technology into their curriculum. SENACYT adopted the first countrywide provision for the computational software to be installed in all universities, and led plans to install it in high schools. SENACYT has trained professors, researchers, and students in Mathematica across Panama, ensuring that the country will become a bastion of scientific education recognized throughout the world as a supreme destination for intellectual enlightenment.

2012

Dr. Ryohei Miyadera

Kwansei Gakuin High School

Areas: Computer Science, Education, Mathematics

Dr. Ryohei Miyadera wants his Kwansei Gakuin High School students to love mathematics and encourages them to perform advanced research in non-traditional ways. He teaches his students to use Mathematica to examine and realize their ideas even if they don’t yet know the high-level mathematics at work. Dr. Miyadera thinks Mathematica enables young people to enjoy mathematics because they aren’t focused on the calculation, but instead on the underlying concepts. A recent example of his students’ work in Mathematica made them finalists for the Asia region in the Google Science Fair 2012 competition. Feedback from his students and successes like this support Dr. Miyadera’s approach to teaching.

See Ryohei Miyadera's Mathematica Demonstrations »

2012

Fred Szabo

Mathematics and Statistics Professor, Concordia University

Areas: Education, Mathematics

Fred Szabo is recognized for his contributions in education. Using the phrase “A New Kind of Learning” in his presentations to demonstrate Mathematica’s usefulness throughout an educational curriculum, Fred has showcased Mathematica in broad discussion about the greater use of technology in Canadian schools and universities, citing his own mathematics courses where close to 90% of the students find Mathematica engaging and fun to use. Fred was among the first to embrace online courses, and began a plan for a series of videos to teach students in less technical areas how to use Mathematica. A recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the President’s Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Fred’s goal is to significantly contribute to global education, especially to making the instruction of mathematics more available in Latin America.

2011

Diego Oviedo-Salcedo

Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana Bucaramanga

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Mathematics, Structural Engineering

Diego Oviedo-Salcedo demonstrated innovative use of Wolfram technologies in the creation of homework, solutions, and presentations for his engineering classes, and also used Mathematica extensively for his PhD research. He is a Wolfram-certified instructor in Latin America.