Career award for Earth sciences mathematician

A mathematician at the University of Reading has been named the winner of an award recognising scientific work relating to the natural world.

Professor Valerio Lucarini will receive the 2022 SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth (SIAG/MPE) Career Prize, biennially awarded to an individual for significant work on the mathematics of Earth or contribution to the SIAG/MPE scientific agenda.

The award is for his mathematical analysis of climate change projections, including work to identify tipping points leading to irreversible changes in the Earth’s climate or ecosystems.

Professor Lucarini, Professor of Statistical Mechanics at the University of Reading, and Director of the Centre for the Mathematics of Planet Earth, said: “It is a great honour to receive such an award from SIAM. I hope it will further motivate interdisciplinary investigations at the boundary between mathematics and climate science.

“I am extremely thankful to my collaborators, and especially to the younger generation, for many stimulating interactions. I also wish to thank the members of the formidable research networks of the Horizon 2020 project TiPES and of the Marie Curie Innovative Training Network CriticalEarth.”

The selection committee, made up of respected scientists from around the world, noted Professor Lucarini’s ‘novel application of ideas from statistical physics and linear response theory to the analysis of climate predictions and climate change implications’.

The prize will be awarded at the 2022 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE2), being held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 13-15 July.

Professor Lucarini will delver a plenary lecture at the conference as part of the award.

The SIAG/MPE prize is awarded by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the leading international society for mathematics and its applications.

The award builds on other recent success for Reading’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, with mathematician and computational scientist Professor Jennifer selected as by SIAM as a 2021 Fellow last year.