Prestigious fellowship awarded to Reading expert on scientific computing

University of Reading mathematician and computational scientist, Professor Jennifer Scott, has been selected as a 2021 Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the leading  international society for mathematics and its applications.

Fellowship of SIAM is one of the society’s highest honours, given in recognition of outstanding research and service to the community. Fewer than 30 Fellowships have been awarded in 2021, across SIAM’s 15,000 members in more than 100 countries, and Professor Scott’s is the only Fellowship awarded this year to a mathematician or computational scientist based in Europe.

The fellowship recognises Professor Scott’s work on sparse matrix algorithms and software over many years, as a professor at Reading and as leader of a team of computational scientists at the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

"Professor Scott and her team to develop high-quality, mathematically-founded software that is used to solve diverse real-world problems across science and engineering and beyond." - Professor Ben Cosh, Head of the School of Mathematical, Physical, and Computational Sciences

Solving simultaneous linear equations in two unknowns is on the GCSE Mathematics syllabus. Solving tens or hundreds of millions of simultaneous equations in the same number of unknowns is a fundamental computational problem that underpins most of science and engineering.

The sparse matrix algorithms and software developed by Professor Scott and her team to tackle this problem have been used in applications as diverse as plasma physics, groundwater flow modelling, and biomedical engineering studies of pulmonary airway opening. 

Professor Ben Cosh, Head of the School of Mathematical, Physical, and Computational Sciences, said: “I am delighted by this prestigious award to one of our leading mathematicians and computational scientists. This recognises huge and effective effort over many years by Professor Scott and her team to develop high-quality, mathematically-founded software that is used to solve diverse real-world problems across science and engineering and beyond.”

Professor Scott is the Director at Reading of the EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in the Mathematics of Planet Earth, joint between the University of Reading and Imperial College London.