Mathematician cited for research excellence

Changfeng Gui, professor of mathematics, was awarded the 2007 Provost’s Research Excellence Award.

The award recognizes excellence in research at the Storrs and regional campuses and is accompanied by a stipend of $2,500 to be used in support of the award winner’s program of research.

Gui’s main research interest is nonlinear partial differential equations that can describe rates of change, such as population changes. Equations of this type are used by engineers, biologists, economists, and others. They can be applied to weather prediction, the design of the shape of an airplane, or stock option calculations.

Four years ago Gui won the PIMS Research prize, one of the highest prizes in mathematics, awarded by the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences. He was cited for exceptional work on the most difficult problems of mathematics.

Gui came to the Mathematics Department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1999 from the University of British Columbia, where he was an associate professor. He earned a master’s degree specializing in algebra at Beijing University and his PhD at the University of Minnesota.

In 1998, he and a collaborator at the University of British Columbia published a paper with their proof of the de Giorgi Conjecture for two dimensions. The conjecture was raised in 1978 by an Italian mathematician and had not been solved until Gui and his collaborator, Nassif Ghoussoub, published their paper.

While at British Columbia he won a prize awarded to top young mathematical researchers in Canada, the Andre-Aisenstadt Prize.