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Barbara Lee Keyfitz is a Canadian-American mathematician, the Dr. Charles Saltzer Professor of Mathematics at
Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pu ...
. In her research, she studies nonlinear
partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...
and associated
conservation laws In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves over time. Exact conservation laws include conservation of energy, conservation of linear momentum, co ...
.


Professional career

Keyfitz did her undergraduate studies at the
University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...
, and earned a Ph.D. in 1970 from
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...
, under the supervision of
Peter Lax Peter David Lax (born Lax Péter Dávid; 1 May 1926) is a Hungarian-born American mathematician and Abel Prize laureate working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics. Lax has made important contributions to integrable systems, fluid dy ...
. Before taking her present position at
Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...
, she taught at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
,
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
,
Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in t ...
, and the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
; at Houston, she was the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Mathematics. She was also the director of the
Fields Institute The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, commonly known simply as the Fields Institute, is an international centre for scientific research in mathematical sciences. It is an independent non-profit with strong ties to 20 Onta ...
from 2004 to 2008. She was president of the
Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...
from 2005 to 2006, and in 2011 she became president of the
International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics The International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) is an organisation for professional applied mathematics societies and related organisations. The current (2020) President is Ya-xiang Yuan. History Until 1999 the Council was ...
. She was Vice-President of the
American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings ...
from 2011 - 2014.


Awards and honors

Keyfitz is the 2005 winner of the Krieger–Nelson Prize of the
Canadian Mathematical Society The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) (french: Société mathématique du Canada) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. It serves the ...
, the 2011
Noether Lecture The Noether Lecture is a distinguished lecture series that honors women "who have made fundamental and sustained contributions to the mathematical sciences". The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) established the annual lectures in 1980 as t ...
r of the
Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...
,Barbara Keyfitz named 2012 Noether Lecturer
Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...
, retrieved 2020-05-21.
the 2012 winner of the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession, and the 2012 AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecturer. She was interviewed by Patricia Clark Kenschaft in her book ''Change is Possible:Stories of Women and Minorities in Mathematics''. In 2012 she became a fellow of the
American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings ...
. She is also a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...
, the
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific soci ...
and the
Fields Institute The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, commonly known simply as the Fields Institute, is an international centre for scientific research in mathematical sciences. It is an independent non-profit with strong ties to 20 Onta ...
. In 2017, she was selected as a fellow of the
Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...
in the inaugural class.


Publications


Books edited

*B. L. Keyfitz and H. C. Kranzer, eds., ''Nonstrictly Hyperbolic Conservation Laws'', Contemporary Mathematics, 60, American Mathematical Society, Providence, 1987. *B. L. Keyfitz and M. Shearer, eds., ''Nonlinear Evolution Equations that Change Type'', IMA Series Volume 27, Springer Verlag, 1990.


Book chapter

*B. L. Keyfitz, 'Hold that Light! Modeling of Traffic Flow by Differential Equations',in ''Six Themes on Variations'', (R. Hardt and R. Forman, eds), American Mathematical Society, 2005.


Selected publications in refereed journals

*B. L. Keyfitz, 'Solutions with shocks: an example of an L1 contractive semi-group', Comm. Pure Appl. Math. XXIV, (1971), 125-132. *B. L. Keyfitz, R. E. Melnik and B. Grossman, 'An analysis of the leading-edge singularity in transonic small-disturbance theory', Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics, XXXI, (1978), 137-155. *B. L. Keyfitz and H. C. Kranzer, 'Existence and uniqueness of entropy solutions to the Riemann problem for hyperbolic systems of two nonlinear conservation laws', Journal of Differential Equations, 27, (1978), 444-476. *B. L. Keyfitz and H. C. Kranzer, 'The Riemann problem for a class of hyperbolic conservation laws exhibiting a parabolic degeneracy', Journal of Differential Equations, 47, (1983), 35-65. *B. L. Keyfitz, 'Classification of one state variable bifurcation problems up to codimension seven', Dynamics and Stability of Systems, 1, (1986), 1-41. *B. L. Keyfitz and G. G. Warnecke, `The existence of viscous profiles for transonic shocks', Communications in Partial Differential Equations, 16, (1991) 1197-1221. *B. L. Keyfitz, 'A geometric theory of conservation laws which change type', Zeitschrift fur Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik, 75, (1995), 571-581. *B. L. Keyfitz and N. Keyfitz, 'The McKendrick Partial Differential Equation and its Uses in Epidemiology and Population Study', Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 26, (1997), 1-9. *B. L. Keyfitz, 'Self-Similar Solutions of Two-Dimensional Conservation Laws', Journal of Hyperbolic Differential Equations, 1 (2004), 445-492. *B. L. Keyfitz, 'The Fichera Function and Nonlinear Equations', Rendiconti Accademia delle Scienze detta dei XL, Memorie di Matematica e Applicazioni, XXX (2006), 83-94. *B. L. Keyfitz, 'Singular Shocks: Retrospective and Prospective', Confluentes Mathematici, 3 (2011), 445-470. *J. Holmes, B. L. Keyfitz and F. Tiglay, 'Nonuniform dependence on initial data for compressible gas dynamics: The Cauchy problem on R2', SIAM Journal of Mathematical Analysis, 50 (2018), 1237-1254.


Personal

Keyfitz was born in
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, and is the daughter of Canadian demographer
Nathan Keyfitz Nathan Keyfitz FRSC FRSS (June 29, 1913 – April 6, 2010) was a Canadian demographer, a pioneer of mathematical demography...... Professional career Keyfitz studied at McGill University, graduating with a B.S. in mathematics in 1934. He worked ...
. She is married to Marty Golubitsky and has two children.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keyfitz, Barbara Lee Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Canadian mathematicians Canadian women academics American women mathematicians Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences alumni Columbia University faculty Princeton University faculty Arizona State University faculty University of Houston faculty Ohio State University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women