Honors Professor Saff

An international mathematics conference at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta was recently held in honor of Vanderbilt’s Edward B. Saff, Professor of Mathematics and Executive Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“Constructive Functions Tech-04,” November 7-9, 2004, paid tribute to Saff for his research contributions and his efforts in building scientific cooperation among mathematicians of many nations. The conference attracted some 100 mathematicians from all around the world, several of whom have worked with Saff in his efforts to promote international cooperation and expand collaborative opportunities for young mathematicians in other countries.

Saff’s international activities are just one aspect of a long and distinguished career in mathematics. He is the recipient of both Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, has received several awards for his research, has had continual research funding from the National Science Foundation, and has served as an advisor to state and federal government agencies. He has published more than 200 research articles and either co-authored or co-edited 15 books. He is editor-in-chief of two research journals, Constructive Approximation and Computational Methods and Function Theory. Saff’s recent article with Associate Professor of Mathematics Doug Hardin entitled “Discretizing Manifolds via Minimum Energy Points” is featured on the cover of the November, 2004, issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, one of the most widely distributed journals in the field.

Saff’s achievements in the international arena include organizing numerous international research conferences that have helped foster the careers of mathematicians from developing countries. He is currently managing a National Science Foundation grant to Vanderbilt’s Department of Mathematics that allows math graduate students to gain international research lab experience at the French federal research institution INRIA. As a lead organizer of the upcoming “Computational Methods and Function Theory 2005” conference in Joensuu, Finland in June 2005, Saff is actively seeking NSF funding to bring several promising graduate students and post-docs to the event.

A Vanderbilt faculty member since 2001, Saff was appointed Executive Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences this fall.

Date Posted: Nov. 3, 2004.