Daniel Szyld, professor in the Department of Mathematics, has been elected president of the International Linear Algebra Society (ILAS). Szyld’s three-year term begins March 1, 2020.Founded in 1989, ILAS aims to encourage and support groups and individuals active in all aspects of linear algebra—the study of vectors, matrices and linear functions.

“I am honored to have been nominated and elected to lead the Society for the next three years,” said Szyld. “ILAS has a strong collaboration with the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and we hope to strengthen that relationship during my tenure as president. We will also explore relationships with other mathematical societies.”

In 2017, Szyld was inducted into both the Fellows of SIAM and Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. The honors recognize, respectively, his exemplary research and service to the community and contributions to numerical and applied linear algebra.

Szyld’s research, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy and others, utilizes computational linear algebra and applied linear algebra—and powerful computers that analyze hundreds of millions of unknowns—to explore a variety of complex biological and physical systems.

“This is a real honor for Daniel and for our department,” says Brian Rider, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics. “It’s a reflection of Daniel’s stature in the field.”

“The Society is at a very good moment right now, on the heels of a very successful meeting in Rio de Janeiro and preparing for our next meeting in Ireland,” explains Szyld. “The Electronic Journal on Linear Algebra, the Society's flagship research journal, has a newly-appointed co-editor-in-chief, and I’m looking forward to continuing the journal’s tradition of publishing high-quality research.”

Greg Fornia