Greek mathematician Constantine Dafermos was awarded the prestigious Norbert Wiener Prize for 2016 for his major contribution to the Partial Differential Equations and Physical Continuum, the American organization American Mathematical Society (AMS). The prize is jointly awarded to the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Τhe Nobert Wiener Prize is awarded for an outstanding contribution to “applied mathematics in the highest and broadest sense” and is the highest honor a mathematician can win.

“The hallmark of the work of Constantine Dafermos is the way it combines deep physical insight and a high degree of mathematical rigor. He is one of the world’s top experts in the theory of conservation laws. These fundamental laws express in mathematical terms the fact that, within an isolated physical system, certain quantities do not change when time passes or when the position of the system is changed,” AMS said in a press release.

Alternate Minitster for Research and Innovation Costas Fotakis congratulated Greece’s top mathematician. “This well-deserved award confirms once more the high level of scientific personnel the country has domestically and in the diaspora,” he wrote in a congratulatory letter sent to Dafermos.

The awards-giving ceremony is to take place on January 7, 2016, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle.

Dafermos received a Diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (1964) and a Ph.D. in Mechanics from Johns Hopkins University. He has been an Assistant Professor at Cornell University (1968-1971) and an Associate Professor (1971-1975) and Professor (1975-) in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. Since 1984, he has been the Alumni-Alumnae University Professor at Brown.