Award established thanks to the generous support of Distinguished University Professor Emeritus Ivo Babuška and his wife Renata.
The Ivo and Renata Babuška Endowed Student Award for Graduate Research in Mathematics was recently established at the University of Maryland thanks to the generous support of Distinguished University Professor Emeritus Ivo Babuška and his late wife Renata. The merit-based award recognizes outstanding Ph.D. student dissertations in the field of computational mathematics in the Department of Mathematics.
Babuška was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1926. He and Renata and their two young children immigrated to the United States in 1968. Babuška was a professor in UMD’s Department of Mathematics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology from 1968 until his retirement in 1994. He and Renata then moved to Austin, Texas. After Renata passed away in 2020, Babuška moved near his son's family in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
UMD played an important role in Babuška's successful career. With his colleagues, especially Professors Bruce Kellogg, John Osborn and Bert Hubbard, Babuška established the foundations of his scientific contributions in the field of computational mathematics, specifically numerical methods for solving partial differential equations. The proofs of the Babuška-Lax-Milgram Theorem and the inf-sup theorem, which became known as the Babuška-Brezzi condition, were two of his contributions while at UMD. These theorems became the foundation of the convergence of the finite element method of solving the partial differential equations. During his career, Babuška published more than 350 papers, books and book chapters. His work has been cited more than 65,000 times. He also received numerous honors and awards.
In 1970, Babuška founded the Finite Element Circus and served as the "ringmaster" while he was at UMD. The Circus is an annual, informal regional meeting held at different East Coast universities. The meeting allows researchers to share new results and works in progress related to finite elements. An innovative aspect of the Circus is that presentations are scheduled at random to encourage discussions among young and established researchers. The 50th Circus was held virtually in 2020.
The Ivo and Renata Babuška Endowed Student Award for Graduate Research in Mathematics was created to encourage the next generation of engineers and scientists in computational mathematics at UMD. The inaugural Babuška Award winner will be announced this month.
