Ruth F. Curtain (16 July 1941 – 18 March 2018) was an Australian mathematician who worked for many years in the
Netherlands
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, established_title = Before independence
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as a professor of mathematics at the
University of Groningen
The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...
. Her research concerned infinite-dimensional
linear system
In systems theory, a linear system is a mathematical model of a system based on the use of a linear operator.
Linear systems typically exhibit features and properties that are much simpler than the nonlinear case.
As a mathematical abstraction o ...
s.
Education and career
Curtain was born in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
. She was the daughter of a house painter, who wanted her to leave school at age 14, but with the support of her mother she persisted. She studied mathematics at the
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...
, earning a bachelor's degree in 1962, diploma in education in 1963, and master's degree in 1965. She moved to
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, in the United States, for graduate study in applied mathematics, and completed her Ph.D. there in 1969. Her dissertation, ''Stochastic Differential Equations In A Hilbert Space'', was supervised by Peter Falb.
She then joined the faculty at
Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...
, but in 1971 moved to the
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...
. In 1977 she moved again, to the University of Groningen, where she remained until her 2006 retirement.
Books
Curtain was the author of:
*''Functional Analysis in Modern Applied Mathematics'' (with A. J. Pritchard, Academic Press, 1977)
*''Infinite Dimensional Linear Systems Theory'' (with A. J. Pritchard, Springer, 1978)
*''An Introduction to Infinite-Dimensional Linear Systems Theory'' (with Hans Zwart, Springer, 1995)
Awards and honours
In 1991 Curtain was elected as a Fellow of the
IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
, associated with the
IEEE Control Systems Society
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
, "for contributions to the control theory of stochastic and infinite-dimensional systems".
In 2012 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 socie ...
gave Curtain their
W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize The W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize is an annual award presented by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for outstanding research in, or other contributions to, the broadly defined areas of Differential equation, differential equati ...
for outstanding research in
differential equation
In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, an ...
s and
control theory
Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a ...
. The award citation recognized Curtain for her "fundamental contributions to the theory of infinite dimensional systems and the control of systems governed by partial and delay differential equation".
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curtain, Ruth F.
1941 births
2018 deaths
20th-century Australian mathematicians
20th-century Dutch mathematicians
University of Melbourne alumni
Brown University alumni
Purdue University faculty
Academics of the University of Warwick
Academic staff of the University of Groningen
Fellows of the IEEE
21st-century Australian mathematicians
21st-century Dutch mathematicians
Australian expatriates in the Netherlands
20th-century women mathematicians
21st-century women mathematicians