Jon Borwein

This issue of Mathematical Programming, Series B, is in honour of Jon Borwein’s 60th birthday. Jon is one of the most productive Canadian mathematicians ever. His research spans an amazingly wide range from pure and applied and computational mathematics to high performance computing. His research continues to have enormous impact: ISI web of science lists more than 4,300 citations for 286 papers; while MathSciNet lists more than 3,100 citations by more than 1,600 authors. Jon is one of the 250 most cited mathematicians of the period 1980–2010.

Besides his active research record, Jon has had eight PhD students: Heinz Bauschke, Warren Hare, Wanzhen Huang, Mason Macklem, Halina Strojwas, Xianfu Wang, Doug Ward, Deming Zhuang. And many postdocs. Jon’s service record is equally impressive, e.g., he has served the Canadian Mathematics Community through his presidency (2000–2002), and he has edited the CMS book series for 15 years. More details follow below.

Jon is currently at the University of Newcastle (NSW). He and his wife, daughter and two young grandchildren reside in Newcastle. Some details from Jon’s webpages now follow.Footnote 1

Biography:

Jonathan Michael Borwein is currently Laureate Professor in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Newcastle (NSW) with adjunct appointments at Dalhousie and at Simon Fraser. He directs the University’s Priority Research Centre in Computer Assisted Research Mathematics and its Applications (CARMA).

Dr. Borwein was Shrum Professor of Science (1993–2003) and a Canada Research Chair in Information Technology (2001–2008) at Simon Fraser University, and was founding Director of the Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics. From 2004 to 2009 he worked in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie as a Canada Research Chair in Distributed and Collaborative Research, cross-appointed in Mathematics.

He was born in St. Andrews in 1951. After completing an Honours Mathematics degree in 1971 at the University of Western Ontrio, he received his DPhil from Oxford in 1974, as an Ontario Rhodes Scholar. Prior to joining SFU in 1993, he worked at Dalhousie (1974–1991), Carnegie-Mellon (1980–19882) and Waterloo (1991–1993).

Both Jon’s father David (at University of Western Ontario) and brother Peter (at Simon Fraser University) are mathematicians; while the mother and sister are medical doctors. Jon and wife Judy have three daughters (Rachel, Naomi, Tova) and (as of Feb. 4, 2012) four grandchildren.

Awards and honours:

He has received various awards including the Chauvenet Prize of the MAA (93), Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (94), Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (02), an honorary degree from Limoges (99), and foreign membership in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (03). In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Administration:

Dr. Borwein was Governor at large of the MAA (2004–2007), is a past President of the Canadian Mathematical Society (2000–2002) and past Chair of (the National Science Library) NRC-CISTI’s Advisory Board (2001–2003). He was recently co-Chair and Chair (2005–2007) of the Executive of C3.ca,—the national HPC Consortium—a Member of the Atlantic Computational Excellence Network Executive (www.ace-net.ca) and chaired the International Math Union’s Committee on Electronic Information and Communications (www.ceic.math.ca, 2002–2008). From 1997 to 2002, he served on NATO Science Panels overseeing the Nato Physical Science program and the ASI/Summer School programs (as chair in 1998). During 2006 he was Director of the Atlantic Association for Research in the Mathematical Sciences (www.aarms.math.ca). He is a member at large of the Board of the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada (2007–2009) and was on the Selection Committee for the Canadian Science and Technology Hall of Fame (2006–2008). In 2010 he was a panel member for the Excellence in Research for Australia review. He currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) (2010–) and sits on the Council of the Australian Mathematical Society (2009–2012) and the Executive of ANZIAM.

Editorial activity:

From 1990 to 2005 Jon coedited the Canadian Mathematical Society’s book series; first with Wiley and after 1996 with Springer. (There are over 50 volumes in print.) Between 2004 and 2007 Jon was the Associate Publisher of the Canadian Mathematical Society responsible for Books and Rich Media and is on, or has recently been on, the editorial board of over a dozen mathematical journals including the Notices (2010–2013) and the Proceedings (1998–2006) of the American Mathematical Society, and the Editorial Board of the American Mathematican Monthly (2012–2016). He is founding co-editor in chief of Springer-Verlag’s SUMAT Series of Springer Undergraduate Mathematics and Technology books (2008–).

Computing and information technology:

Jon is co-founder (1995) of a Halifax software company, MathResources, producing highly interactive CD and Web software mainly for high school and university mathematics. He is also a coauthor of Canada’s Long Range Plan for advanced computing: Engines of Discovery (c3.ca, 2005 and 2007) and sits on the Canada-EC Information Science and Technology committee (2005–2008).