News Release

LESLIE GREENGARD WINS 
AMS STEELE PRIZE

January 11, 2001

PROVIDENCE, RIóLeslie Greengard, a mathematician at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, has won the 2001 Leroy P. Steele Prize for a Seminal Contribution to Research. Professor Greengard shares the prize with his collaborator Vladimir Rokhlin of Yale University.  Presented by the American Mathematical Society, the Steele Prize is one of the highest distinctions in mathematics.  The prize will be awarded today at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans.

Professor Greengard is being honored for his paper co-authored with Professor Rokhlin and entitled "A fast algorithm for particle simulations" (Journal of Computational Physics, volume 73, number 2, 1987).  "This is one of the most important papers in numerical analysis and scientific computing in the last two decades," the prize citation states.  The paper showed how certain ideas could be combined "to produce an algorithm that would make possible scientific and engineering computations that would have been impossible before."

Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 30,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life.