Erica Jen (Chinese: 任峻瑞; Rén Jùnrùi; circa 1952 – November 12, 2023) was an American applied mathematician. She was a researcher at

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

, a faculty member at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

, and a scientific director and faculty member at the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...

. Jen's research focused on the mathematical analysis of chaotic and complex behavior. Her research areas included singular integral equations for crack propagation, the mathematics of cellular automata (a class of dynamical systems that evolve according to simple local interaction rules), and mechanisms of robustness in natural and social systems.

Early life and education

Jen was born in 1952 to

Chih-Kung Jen Chih-Kung Jen (; August 15 or October 2, 1906 – November 19, 1995) was a Chinese physicist who emigrated to the U.S. and participated in some of the 20th century's major scientific, political and social developments in both the United States ...

, a Chinese-born physicist who played a leading role in reestablishing scientific exchanges between the U.S. and China in the 1970s. After her junior year at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, Jen attended Beijing University for further education, becoming the first American national allowed to study in China since 1949 and the first foreigner since the Cultural Revolution. After returning to the U.S., Jen obtained a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

of the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of Public education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...

and was the first postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Career

Jen served as a university scholar and assistant professor of mathematics at the

from 1983 to 1986. In 1986, she became a staff member in the theoretical division and acting deputy director of the Center for Nonlinear Studies at

. In 1995, Jen joined the

, a leading interdisciplinary research center for the study of

complex adaptive system A complex adaptive system (CAS) is a system that is ''complex'' in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is '' adaptive'' in that the ...

s. She initially served as vice president for academic affairs and later as a research professor. Jen was the principal investigator for programs in evolutionary dynamics, social networks, and distributed learning. During her time at the Santa Fe Institute, Jen developed the program on the robustness of physical, biological, ecological, and social systems. After 2003, Jen served as external faculty, a science board member, and a science board fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. Jen was also an editor of Physica D: Nonlinearity. She died on November 12, 2023.

Selected bibliography

*Daily Life: An Experience with Peking Youth in The China Difference (1979), Ross Terrill, ed., New York: Harper & Row *D. Campbell, J. P. Crutchfield, J. D. Farmer, and E. Jen. Experimental Mathematics: The Role of Computation in Nonlinear Science. Comm. ACM 28 1985: 374 *1989 Lectures on Complex Systems, Erica Jen (ed.), Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Addison-Wesley, 1989 *Global properties of cellular automata, J. Statistical Physics, vol 43, p 219-242 (1986). *Scaling of preimages in cellular automata," Complex Systems 1 (1987) 1045-1062 *Exact solvability and quasiperiodicity in one-dimensional cellular automata," Nonlinearity 4 (1991), 251–276 *Stable or Robust? What's the Difference? Complexity 8(3): 12-18 (2003) *Robust Design: A Repertoire of Biological, Ecological, and Engineering Case Studies, E. Jen (ed), Santa Fe Institute Studies on the Sciences of Complexity, Oxford University Press, 2005

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jen, Erica 1950s births 2023 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Peking University alumni University of Southern California faculty Los Alamos National Laboratory Santa Fe Institute people Yale University alumni Complex systems scientists Stony Brook University alumni 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians