Coifman Awarded Prestigious 2024 AMS-SIAM Birkhoff Prize

12/14/2023
Departments: Electrical Engineering

Yale Engineering’s Ronald Coifman has been honored with the 2024 AMS-SIAM George David Birkhoff Prize in Applied Mathematics, a recognition of “his profound impact on pure and applied harmonic analysis, and for the introduction of tools developed from these areas to address modern challenges of data science.”

Coifman’s groundbreaking work has notably influenced various branches of modern analysis and applied mathematics.

Described as foundational in the field, Coifman's research has significantly advanced theories in areas such as Hardy spaces, singular integrals, the theory of homogeneous spaces, complex analysis, BMO theory, and the Coifman-Meyer theory of paraproducts. His pioneering efforts in the development of wavelets, particularly the type now known as Coiflet, have marked him as a leader in the field.

Coifman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. His accolades include the 1996 DARPA Sustained Excellence Award, the 1996 Connecticut Science Medal, the 1999 Pioneer Award of the International Congresses on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the 1999 National Medal of Science, and the 2018 Rolf Schock Prize for Mathematics.

In response to this latest honor, Coifman expressed his gratitude to the AMS and SIAM, and reflected on his journey in mathematics as a seamless blend of pure and applied aspects. He acknowledged the profound influence of mentors and collaborators like A. Zygmund, Guido Weiss, Yves Meyer, and others who helped guide his path.

Currently a Sterling Professor of Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, Coifman earned his Ph.D. in Geneva in 1965. He has collaborated extensively with luminaries across the globe, contributing to the development of "mathematical empirical languages" for modeling empirical observations.

The Birkhoff Prize, awarded every three years since 1967, is a joint initiative by the American Mathematical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and celebrates outstanding contributions to applied mathematics. The prize will be presented at the 2024 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco.