2012 Nemmers Prize in Mathematics Recipient

Ingrid Daubechies

Duke University

For her numerous and lasting contributions to applied and computational analysis and for the remarkable impact her work has had across engineering and the sciences

Official press release

Ingrid Daubechies is the academic leader in the broad area of theoretical signal processing. She is world-renowned for her many pioneering contributions to the theory and application of wavelets and filter-banks. Her work on wavelets had a profound impact on the extensive field of mathematical research known as computational harmonic analysis. It found powerful applications in the areas of data compression, compressed sensing and digital communications, and it has an impact on a wide range of scientific disciplines. The influence of her work is realized daily in millions of consumer and technological products, including communication systems, medical imaging, seismic exploration and audio and video coders.

Daubechies' more recent research has focused on discrete geometry, a field which uses very different methods from those in which she has previously worked; this work is motivated by real world problems in computer animation and biology.

Among her numerous honors, she received the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics in 2000, for her fundamental discoveries on wavelets that are among the most significant in the history of mathematics. She also was a fellow of the MacArthur Foundation between 1992 and 1997 and, in 1993, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1994 she received the American Mathematical Society Steele Prize for Exposition for her book Ten Lectures on Wavelets. In 1997 she was awarded the AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics, and in 1998 she was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Past winners of the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize in Mathematics are: Terence Tao (2010); Simon Donaldson (2008); Robert P. Langlands (2006); Mikhael L. Gromov (2004); Yakov G. Sinai (2002); Edward Witten (2000); John H. Conway (1998); Joseph B. Keller (1996); and Yuri I. Manin (1994).

In connection with the award, Ingrid Daubechies will deliver a public lecture on April 24, 2013.