Michael Shelley

Michael J. Shelley, Lilian and George Lyttle Professor of Applied Mathematics, Professor of Mathematics and Neural Science, Co-Director, Applied Mathematics Laboratory. Michael J. Shelley is an American applied mathematician who works on the modeling and simulation of complex systems arising in physics and biology. This has included free-boundary problems in fluids and materials science, singularity formation in partial differential equations, modeling visual perception in the primary visual cortex, dynamics of complex and active fluids, cellular biophysics, and fluid-structure interaction problems such as the flapping of flags, stream-lining in nature, and flapping flight. He is also the co-founder and co-director of the Courant Institute's Applied Mathematics Lab.

Shelley was born in La Junta, Colorado (USA). He holds a BA in Mathematics from the University of Colorado (1981) and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona (1985). He was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, and then joined the faculty of mathematics at the University of Chicago. In 1992 he joined the Courant Institute of Mathematics at New York University where he is the George and Lilian Lyttle Professor of Applied Mathematics. He is also a Professor of Neuroscience (NYU) and Professor of Mechanical Engineering (NYU-Poly). Recent honors include Distinguished Chair of the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences(2001), Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (2007) and the Inaugural Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2009)