UCF Mathematics Professor Honored in China

UCF mathematics professor Dr. Mourad Ismail, was recently honored for his hard work and research in the field of mathematics. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, a conference on orthogonal polynomials, integrable systems, and their applications was held in China.

“Orthogonal polynomials is one of my main research interests and my work overlaps with integrable systems,” Ismail said.

From Oct. 25-29, 2014 the conference was hosted at both Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China and Shaoxing University in Shaoxing.

Ismail had met the organizer of the event, B. X. Hu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences only once before the conference and read some of his papers.

“It was an act of kindness that he took the initiative to organize such a meeting,” Ismail said.

In mathematics, a conference held in honor of a birthday is done only for people whose research is influential and whose research activities includes a lot of collaborations.

Ismail has done a multitude of important work in several areas of mathematics, from orthogonal polynomials, to combinatorics, to integral systems, and to q-theory. As a result, these works inspired and influenced many mathematicians from all over the world.

Department chair and professor, Dr. Xin Li, said that the occasion was a great honor for Ismail as well as the department.

“I was lucky to be invited to the conference and to witness many testimonials of the attendants who recalled their first meetings with Professor Ismail and talked about Professor Ismail as a great mathematician and a friend,” Li said.

Over 100 mathematicians and mathematical physicists, including many leading experts in the fields, from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, and USA attended the conference.

“I felt all the hard work I put in is being recognized,” Ismail said. “It was very gratifying to see many people, mostly younger, from all continents except Antarctica citing my work or saying that my work influenced their research.”

According to the organizers, the aim of the conference was to shed further light on the fascinating interactions between each of the important fields of research. They also wanted to form new collaborations and to outline new directions for future studies. By holding this conference they wanted to give an opportunity to young Chinese mathematicians to meet the leading experts in these areas from all of the world and to talk about their own research.

“As you get older you play a father or grandfather figure and this what I felt towards the many young talented participants,” Ismail said.

We would like to congratulate Dr. Mourad Ismail on all of his hard work and achievements.