The workshop participants reflected on 25 years of U.S. Office of Naval Research applied and computational analysis and related programs.

 Participants of the Contemporary Issues and Future Opportunities in Applied Mathematics stand on the steps of the Kirwan Hall math building.
Image Credit: Natalie Kinnear

The Brin Mathematics Research Center hosted a workshop in October 2025 on "Contemporary Issues and Future Opportunities in Applied Mathematics" in honor of Reza Malek-Madani's retirement as director of the U.S. Office of Naval Research's (ONR) Applied and Computational Analysis program.

The workshop was organized by Nam Chen (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Doron Levy and Eitan Tadmor (UMD), and Evelyn Lunasin and Stephen Wiggins (U.S. Naval Academy), and brought together 40 researchers who contributed to ONR activities over the past 25 years to reflect on the lasting impact of the applied and computational analysis and related programs.

The Brin MRC enabled scores of researchers from different disciplines to come together and provide a brief overview of their ONR-supported research. Those attending praised Malek-Madani for his remarkable interdisciplinary vision. Young researchers acknowledged his constructive role in their careers, mid-career researchers highlighted how he was instrumental in fostering connections, and senior researchers lauded his gentle guidance across various domains—from clouds and atmospheric dynamics to weather prediction, from shallow-water and sea ice to oceanography, geophysical processes, stochastic modeling, and a wide range of novel mathematical methodologies for experiments, modeling and simulations.