The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences Announces New Interim Director

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Jayadev Athreya as Interim Director. Jayadev Athreya is a Professor of Mathematics and the Comparative History of Ideas at the University of Washington, and the founder of the Washington Experimental Mathematics Lab. He is originally from Ames, Iowa where he graduated from Iowa State University. Athreya completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, took on postdoctoral fellowships at Yale and Princeton, and was previously at the University of Illinois before moving to the University of Washington. He has held visiting positions in the UK, France, and India. Much of his research is in geometry, dynamical systems, and the creative processes of mathematics.

Professor Athreya’s involvement with PIMS is not new. He has and continues to collaborate with many scientists in the PIMS community including Brian Marcus (UBC Site Director), Chris Hoffman (University of Washington Site Director), Anthony Quas (University of Victoria Site Director) and many others. He has co-organized various events sponsored by PIMS including the Pacific Northwest Dynamics workshop. Professor Athreya has also served on the Director’s advisory council, and as Special Advisor to the Director. He is currently the Chair of the 2022 Pacific Rim Mathematical Association (PRIMA) Scientific Committee.

As he commences his term, Professor Athreya's vision for PIMS is to make the institute a leader in establishing equity, diversity, inclusion, and maintaining excellence in the mathematical sciences by fostering collaborations across departments, institutions, and disciplines.

The PIMS Community is thankful to Professor James Colliander, who has been the Institute’s Director since 2016. Under Professor Colliander’s leadership, PIMS has built crucial scientific computing and industrial partnerships in the Mathematics community, via the Callysto, Syzygy, bcdata and Math to Power Industry projects. Professor Colliander has reshaped the leadership of PIMS to a more distributed model. We wish him luck in his future projects.

Engin Özberk,

Chair, PIMS Board of Directors