OSU Distinguished Professors

University Distinguished Professors make unique and highly impactful contributions to OSU, the nation, and the world through their scholarship, creative work, teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students.

 

 

2024 University Distinguished Professors

 

Lectures

Wednesday, May 8 | Memorial Union Horizon Room

1:30 - 3 p.m. Lecture by Małgorzata Peszyńska

3:30 - 5 p.m. Lecture by Todd S. Palmer

 

Reception

5 - 6 p.m. | May 8 | Memorial Union Horizon Room

All are welcome to celebrate our 2024 University Distinguished Professors


 

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Todd Palmer

Todd S. Palmer, University Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Dr. Todd Palmer is a professor in the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering. He is an internationally recognized expert in the physics of nuclear reactors and computational methods for radiation transport and diffusion. Dr. Palmer has served as a PI or co-PI on over $22 million in funded research at OSU.

REGISTER HERE
Lecture: Wednesday, May 8 | 3:30 - 5 p.m. | Memorial Union Horizon Room 
Transcomputable: The Insatiable Need for, and Relentless Challenge of, Predicting the Transport of Radiation

At the intersection of nuclear science and engineering, applied mathematics, and scientific computing you’ll find the quaint and quirky subdiscipline of computational radiation transport.  Since the 1940’s, researchers have been pursuing numerical solutions of the Boltzmann equation to safely and effectively design and engineer systems that exploit interactions of radiation with nuclei and/or atoms.  My goals with this talk are to convey the beauty in this beast of an equation, describe some of the existing and future applications, and illustrate how my research group is collaborating to bring new transport algorithms and software to the world’s biggest and most powerful computers.

 

 

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Malgo Peszynska

Małgorzata Peszyńska, University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics

Dr. Małgorzata Peszyńska is a professor in the Department of Mathematics in the College of Science. She is nationally and internationally recognized as a leader in mathematical and computational modeling of complex processes, and her work has been particularly significant in building bridges across the disciplinary boundaries. Dr. Peszyńska has served as a program director for the National Science Foundation, in multiple roles for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and is an elected as a fellow of the AAAS. She holds the endowed Joel Davis Faculty Scholar in Mathematics position.

REGISTER HERE

Lecture: Wednesday, May 8 | 1:30 - 3 p.m. | MU Horizon Room 
Math Matters: Multi-* Modeling, Analysis and Simulation

We describe our research on multi-scale multi-physics systems modeled with multi-valued operators: a complex blend of beauty, truth and utility of computational and applied mathematics inspired by real life applications. We travel from nano- to pore- to lab- and field scale of porous media filled with fluids and materials in multiple phases to discover and predict the response of these systems to the external changing world. Along the way we show the indispensable role of abstract elegant mathematics to innovate, analyze the accuracy and efficiency of the algorithms and models, and to serve as a universal language. We also show how essential it is to build the bridges within the local Oregon State University community and external partners enabling interdisciplinary collaborations to help our students to "choose the complex and challenging over the easy and simple."