Dr. Gigliola Staffilani, the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will visit The University of Toledo next week to give three talks.
She will deliver the Shoemaker Lecture Monday, April 10, at 4 p.m. in University Hall Room 4010.
“The Many Faces of Dispersive Equations as Infinite Dimensional Hamiltonian Systems” is the title of her talk.
“She is an expert in nonlinear partial differential equations, combining techniques from dynamical systems and harmonic analysis. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,” Dr. Alessandro Arsie, UT associate professor and associate chair of mathematics, said. “Besides being a very accomplished mathematician, she also has a very interesting personal story to tell.”
Staffilani is from Martinsicuro, Italy, where she grew up on a farm. Her father died when she was 10, and her mother decided she didn’t need to continue her education. But her older brother shared his books with her, and Staffilani fell in love with math.
She returned to school and decided to become a mathematics teacher.
With a fellowship, she studied at the University of Bologna and then moved to the United States, where she received master of science and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago in 1991 and 1995, respectively.
Gertrude and Richard Shoemaker
Her free, public talk is made possible by the Richard Shoemaker funds and is sponsored by Delta X; Pi Mu Epsilon National Mathematics Honor Society at the University; the Mathematics and Statistics Department; and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
Richard Shoemaker and his wife, Gertrude, had the foresight to provide funding for these and future math talks. Their daughters, Martha Gallagher and Ann Weber, plan to attend the April 10 lecture.
Before the lecture, an induction ceremony for the Pi Mu Epsilon National Mathematics Honor Society will take place. New members being recognized are students Jackson Schall, Carson Granata, Nurul Raihen and Jacob Noon. Dr. Nathaniel Iverson, an associate lecturer in mathematics, also will be inducted.
Staffilani also will give lectures Tuesday and Wednesday, April 11 and 12, at 4 p.m. in University Hall Room 4010. She will discuss “Energy Transfer for Certain Nonlinear Schrodinger Initial Value Problems” and “Almost Sure Well-Posedness and Randomization of Initial Data,” respectively.
For more information on the free, public lectures, contact Arsie at 419.530.3247 or alessandro.arsie@utoledo.edu.
