John Bell, a senior staff mathematician in CRD’s Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering (CCSE), has been named to the Board on Mathematical Sciences and their Applications (BMSA) of the National Academies. Established in November 1984, the board leads activities in the mathematical sciences at the National Research Council (NRC). 

“This is yet another well-deserved honor for John and a fitting recognition of his leadership in innovative applied mathematics,” said Computational Research Division Director David Brown.

Bell, who recently stepped down as leader of CCSE after more than 20 years, is well-known for his work in the areas of finite volume methods, numerical methods for low-Mach-number flows, adaptive mesh refinement and parallel computing. He has also worked on the application of these numerical methods to problems from a broad range of fields, including combustion, shock physics, seismology, flow in porous media and astrophysics. More recently, he has been developing new methods for combining experimental data and simulation to provide better scientific predictions.

He was the recipient of the SIAM/Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Prize in Computational Science and Engineering in 2003, and he received the Sidney Fernbach Award in 2005 “for outstanding contributions to the development of numerical algorithms, mathematical and computational tools and on the application of those methods to conduct leading-edge scientific investigations in combustion, fluid dynamics and condensed matter.”

The BMSA consists of 19 members whose backgrounds represent the wide range of the mathematical sciences: core mathematics, applied mathematics, statistics, operations research, scientific computing, and financial and risk analysis. This composition of the board reflects a deep conviction of the unity of the mathematical sciences in all their manifestations and of the importance of adding to both the knowledge in and the applicability of the mathematical sciences.