Kate Evans, director for the Computational Sciences and Engineering, or CSE, Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been awarded the 2024 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematicians, or SIAM, Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth Prize, or SIAG/MPE Prize.
SIAM is a preeminent professional organization for mathematics and boasts more than 14,000 members worldwide. The SIAG/MPE Prize is given biennially to one researcher for significant contributions relevant to the intersection of mathematics and earth science or it can be awarded for sustained or major research relevant to SIAG/MPE’s scientific agenda.
Evans was recognized for three specific attributes, namely “far-reaching impacts of multidisciplinary algorithms and scientific computing; leadership in multidisciplinary team building; and excellent science communication between disciplines.”
Evans will officially receive the prize at the 2024 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Planet Earth conference in Portland, Oregon, from June 10 – 12, where she will give a brief plenary presentation related to her research.
Evans has decades of experience in the areas of analysis of large-scale weather patterns, Earth system modeling, or ESM, evaluation and implementing and optimizing time-stepping algorithms to improve ESM. Her numerical methods focus has connected ESM to other applications, including ice sheets, more general fluid flow, disease propagation, national security and oncology.
As director of CSE, Evans oversees a staff of more than 150 employees working on advanced computing methods for a broad portfolio of applications. She is the outgoing chair for the SIAM activity group on Mathematics of the Planet Earth, where she advocated for mathematics to address climate change, boost environmental resilience and advance clean energy.
Evans earned her doctorate in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences with an emphasis in math from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2000, where she was awarded the William Rhodes fellowship and the senior Dean’s fellowship for most outstanding senior doctoral student. After serving as a post-doctoral researcher and staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Decision Applications and Theoretical Division and in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at ORNL, she led the Computational Earth Sciences group at ORNL for six years prior to moving into her current role. She is a member of the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union and SIAM.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
