Wil Schilders became ICIAM's tenth president in October, 2023. He writes ...
As the incoming president, I would first like to thank Ya-xiang Yuan very much for all the work he performed in the past 4 years being the president of ICIAM. ICIAM is alive and kicking, as can be seen from the successful ICIAM 2023 congress with nearly 5500 participants. It is a huge success, and means that ICIAM is doing the right things. Mathematics is everywhere, in many applications, in all sciences, in all branches of industry. It is great to see so many colleagues at the ICIAM Congress, all working hard on these applications demonstrating the importance of our discipline. So, thank you, Ya-xiang, for leading this important organisation for the past 4 years!
But we cannot lean back and relax, there are many things to be done. For this reason, we are extending the number of officers-at-large gradually from 6 to 10. In the Board meeting held on August 26, two new officers were elected: Yvonne Stokes and Kenji Kajiwara. Welcome on board, Yvonne and Kenji, and I hope we will have a very fruitful collaboration. In the same meeting, Luis Vega was re-elected. We are very happy to have Luis on board for another 4 years, his main task is to extend membership. This is not a simple matter, in many developing countries mathematicians are suffering from a very high teaching load, preventing them to perform research. Also, mathematicians are often not organised at the national level.
Quite a few tasks are ahead of us, and these will be discussed in detail in the monthly meetings of the officers. We also hope to involve member societies for some of these tasks. Another important decision that was taken during the recent Board meeting is to have online Board meetings in the even years, allowing all member societies to participate. For some members, physical travel is difficult, especially to faraway places. Organising every other year an online Board meeting will hopefully strengthen the bonds between the ICIAM member societies.
I hope you will all join me in making ICIAM even more successful and flourishing in the coming years. We will keep you informed via regular updates in the Dianoia newsletter, and it would be good if you stimulate colleagues to also subscribe to it. Together we can work on a prosperous future for ICIAM!
About the new president: Wil Schilders obtained his BSc and MSc degrees from Radboud University in Nijmegen (NL) in 1976 and 1978, respectively, and his PhD in numerical analysis from Trinity College Dublin in 1980. From 1980 till 2006 he worked for Philips Research in Eindhoven (NL), developing algorithms for semiconductor device simulation and electronic circuit simulation. From 2006 till 2010 he led the mathematics division at the newly established company NXP Semiconductors, the former Philips Semiconductor division. Since 1999, he also held a part-time professor position at Eindhoven University of Technology. In 2010, this position was extended to 0.5 fte, besides that he became also the director of the newly established Dutch Platform for Mathematics. In 2020, he was the 4th Mittelsten-Scheid visiting guest professor at the University of Wuppertal, and in 2021 he was appointed Hans Fischer senior fellow at TU Munich. End of June 2023, Wil retired from TU Eindhoven, but is still employed for 1 day a week, and is also still the director of the Dutch Platform for Mathematics. A copy of his valedictory lecture can be obtained here: https://research.tue.nl/en/publications/mission-possible-mathematics-for-a-better-world
Wil has been the president of the European Consortium of Mathematics for Industry (ECMI) in 2010 and 2011, and was a founding member of the new organisation EU-MATHS-IN in 2013, as well as its president from 2015-2020. In 2019 Wil was elected officer-at-large in ICIAM, and president-elect since end of 2021. Wil is a honorary member of ECMI, a fellow of SIAM and in 2022 received the Stairway to Impact award of the Dutch research funding organisation NWO.
