Wolfram Computation Meets Knowledge

Wolfram Innovator Award

Wolfram technologies have long been a major force in many areas of industry and research. Leaders in many top organizations and institutions have played a major role in using computational intelligence and pushing the boundaries of how the Wolfram technology stack is leveraged for innovation across fields and disciplines.

We recognize these deserving recipients with the Wolfram Innovator Award, which is awarded at the Wolfram Technology Conferences around the world.

Presented at the Wolfram Technology Conferences. Learn more

2018

Abby Brown

Teacher of Mathematics, Torrey Pines High School (Department of Math)

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Calculus, Computational Thinking, Education, Mathematics Courseware Design

Abby Brown is a teacher at Torrey Pines High School. Over the last decade, she has used Wolfram technologies to develop and publish interactive course materials for high-school and junior-high mathematics. In addition to evangelizing the Wolfram Language to colleagues and students, Abby actively shares her course materials through a variety of websites. She has made numerous contributions to Computational Thinking Initiatives and has started the Computational Thinking Club at her school. Many of Abby’s former students go on to use the Wolfram Language for hackathons and university work.

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.

2018

David Creech

Manager of Engineering Analysis and Development, McDermott (formerly CB&I)

Areas: Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Risk Analysis, Software Development, System Modeling

David Creech is the manager of engineering analysis and development at McDermott (formerly CB&I) and a longtime user of the Wolfram Language. In his undergraduate and graduate programs, Creech used the Wolfram Language for mechanical engineering work, including the development of a Wolfram Language package for automating calculations to produce consumer ratings diagrams. At McDermott, he uses Wolfram technology in the development and management of leak detection and repair (LDAR) programs for industrial facilities. In 2012, he started an initiative at McDermott to replace hundreds of FORTRAN and Excel programs with Wolfram Language packages, modernizing their engineering workflow to provide easier access and customization for engineers. Creech’s colleagues are now using the Wolfram Language for their own computations and connecting them to these centralized packages to create more efficient tools for engineering their products.

2018

Nicholas Mecholsky

Research Scientist, Vitreous State Laboratory
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Image Processing, Machine Learning, Nuclear Engineering, Optimization, Physics, System Modeling

Nicholas Mecholsky is a research scientist and professor focusing on optimization and physical modeling. In addition to demonstrating high-level math and physics concepts to his students with the Wolfram Language, he has utilized it in research publications on subjects ranging from animal flocks to autonomous cars to thermoelectric transfer. He is currently involved in a joint project with the US Department of Energy and Vitreous State Laboratory using Wolfram Language image processing and machine learning to model, analyze and predict crystallization phenomena in nuclear tank waste. The project has significantly improved the efficiency of vitrification (transformation into glass), helping to make safer nuclear waste storage a reality.

2018

Jorge Ramirez

Applied Mathematician, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Areas: Applied Mathematics, Biology, Calculus, Education, Fluid Dynamics, Mathematics Courseware Design

Dr. Ramirez is a professor dedicated to applying contemporary mathematics to the natural sciences using the Wolfram Language. In addition to using the Wolfram Language daily for simulating natural processes, solving ODEs and PDEs, and performing administrative tasks like class management, he regularly evangelizes it to his students and colleagues. Dr. Ramirez also uses the language to develop interactive lectures, notes and other course materials—most notably for differential calculus lectures with 50+ students. He is currently involved in various research projects using the Wolfram Language to model, analyze and predict processes such as ant pheromone dynamics, nonlinear transport in breaking oceanic waves, runoff distribution in watersheds and glucose levels in diabetics.

2018

Aaron Santos

Data Scientist, EMC Insurance

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Computational Physics, Data Science, Industrial Engineering, Internet of Things, Nanotechnology, Risk Analysis

Dr. Santos is a data scientist, professor and author who uses Wolfram technology to advance data and device integration in a variety of sectors. He and his team at EMC Insurance have used the Wolfram Language and Wolfram Enterprise Private Cloud for valuable research analyzing data from IoT devices to help improve driver safety, reduce fuel consumption and identify worksite hazards. As part of a recent startup, Dr. Santos also worked on the development of a nanotechnology device for efficiently identifying the genetic makeup of food products, with future plans to integrate Wolfram Cloud technology to provide additional analytics and services to consumers.

2018

Neil Singer

President, AC Kinetics, Inc.

Areas: Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, System Modeling

Dr. Singer is a mechanical engineer and entrepreneur who used Mathematica Version 1 in research to reduce vibrations in electric machines. Since then, he has heavily encouraged innovative uses of Wolfram technology within the engineering community. In 2013 he founded AC Kinetics, a company that uses the Wolfram Language and Wolfram SystemModeler to simulate and verify models for digital motor controller designs. The Wolfram workflow has provided the team with significant savings on development and computation time, and their resulting prototypes have reduced energy consumption by nearly 50% in some cases. Licensees of AC Kinetics products include many high-profile companies, such as NASA, Westinghouse and HP. In the future, Dr. Singer and his team hope to create interactive digital twins for real-time analysis and updating of models.

2018

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Scientific Advisor, Universa Investments

Areas: Authoring and Publishing, Financial Risk, Probability Theory

Dr. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a world-renowned researcher and author with dozens of published papers relating to the philosophical, mathematical and practical issues with probability, especially in the fields of financial risk and decision making. His multivolume work Incerto, which covers broad facets of uncertainty, has been translated into 37 languages. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, with a focus on properties of “antifragile” systems whose functioning improves with disorder. Dr. Taleb has used Mathematica extensively in his work, including for research into non-idealized probabilistic decision-making models and computational pre-asymptotics.

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