2008 Blackwell-Tapia Prize

This prize is awarded every second year in honor of the legacy of David H. Blackwell and Richard A. Tapia, two distinguished mathematical scientists who have been inspirations to more than a generation of African American, Latino/Latina, and Native American students and professionals in the mathematical sciences. It recognizes a mathematical scientist who has contributed and continues to contribute significantly to research in his or her field of expertise, and who has served as a role model for mathematical scientists and students from under-represented minority groups or contributed in other significant ways to addressing the problem of the under-representation of minorities in mathematics.

Dr. Meza has an exceptionally distinguished record as a mathematical scientist, an accomplished and effective head of a large department doing cutting-edge explorations in the computational sciences, computational mathematics, and future technologies, and a role model and active advocate for others from groups under-represented in the mathematical sciences. As a mathematician, his current research focuses on nonlinear optimization with an emphasis on methods for parallel computing, and he has also worked on various scientific and engineering applications including scalable methods for nanoscience, power grid reliability, molecular conformation problems, optimal design of chemical vapor deposition furnaces, and semiconductor device modeling. He is a much sought after speaker, both nationally and internationally, on topics ranging from his own research, through major invited talks on the importance of diversity such as his presentation as the 2008 Marjorie Lee Browne Colloquium Speaker for the University of Michigan’s Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration, and advice important to young mathematicians-in-the-making such as his presentations to student groups on how they can be effective speakers and presenters themselves. His record of service to communities under-represented in mathematics includes chairing the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) Human Resources Advisory Committee, co-chairing the annual Diversity Day workshops of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and many other activities too numerous to mention here; however, they regularly extend from serving on high-level advisory committees on diversity for major scientific organizations, through rolling up his own sleeves and working directly with early-career mathematics students from under-represented groups, as he did in the 2007 MSRI Undergraduate Program (MSRI-UP).

In addition to his other recognitions, Dr. Meza will also receive the 2008 Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), to be presented on October 9 at the 2008 SACNAS National Conference in Salt Lake City.

The prize will be presented at the Fifth Blackwell-Tapia Conference, to be hosted by the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) in Research Triangle Park, NC on November 14–15, 2008; see www.samsi.info/workshops/2008Blackwell-Tapia.shtml for more information The one and a half day meeting will include a mix of activities designed to inform the next generation of students about career opportunities in mathematics and to provide a chance for them to network with other students and with mathematical scientists who play a leadership role in their communities.

The co-chairs of the National Blackwell-Tapia Committee that selected the prize recipient were Rodrigo Bañuelos, Professor and Department Head of Mathematics at Purdue University and 2004 recipient of the Blackwell-Tapia Prize, and William A. Massey, Edwin S. Wiley Professor of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University and 2006 recipient of the Blackwell-Tapia Prize. Other members of the committee were James Berger, Director of SAMSI; Robert Bryant, Director of MSRI; Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Regents Professor and Joaquin Bustoz Jr. Professor of Mathematical Biology at Arizona State University; and ex officio members Ricardo Cortez, Pendergraft William Larkin Duren Professor of Mathematics at Tulane University and Chair of the MSRI Human Resources Advisory Committee; David Eisenbud, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley; and Robert Megginson, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Mathematics and Associate Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan.

The first four Blackwell-Tapia conferences were held at Cornell University (2000), MSRI (2002), the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) in Los Angeles (2004), and the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications in Minneapolis (2006). The conference arose from discussions in the MSRI Human Resources Advisory Committee when Carlos Castillo-Chavez was a member. A proposal by him to David Eisenbud, then MSRI Director, resulted in a collaboration between Cornell and MSRI on the first Blackwell-Tapia Conference, which had the specific purpose of honoring Blackwell and Tapia. The success of this conference led directly to the second in the series and the first awarding of the Blackwell-Tapia Prize at MSRI in 2002, with the goal of extending the honoring of these two eminent mathematical scientists to those who have followed in their footsteps.