Past Winners of the IMA Lighthill Thwaites Prize
Past Winners
Raphael Assier Winner of the 2011 prize
I was fortunate enough to be the first recipient of the Lighthill‐Thwaites prize for its inauguration in 2011. The paper I submitted for the prize was my first journal article, and the presentations took place during my first ever conference! Saying that the prize had a huge influence on my career development would be an understatement. It clearly improved my visibility within the Applied Mathematics community, and, as a result, I was lucky enough to secure first a Junior research Fellowship at Imperial College London and then a permanent position at the University of Manchester, all this within two years of my PhD viva. Interestingly, one of the influential people behind my appointment at Manchester turned out to be the president of the jury for the Lighthill‐Thwaites prize 2011… From this edition, at least four of the six finalists are now in a permanent position!
I have since followed the subsequent editions of the prize with great interest, and I have been very impressed by the quality and the diversity of the research presented. I also try to encourage my PhD students to submit to the prize, and two of them were finalists in the 2017 and 2019 editions respectively. Apart from improving their visibility, this was also a great opportunity to improve their publication record. Indeed, all finalists are invited to submit, as part of a special issue, an article in the great journal that is the IMA journal of Applied Mathematics.
In the recent years, the prize has become more and more open to the international community, which adds to its prestige. I would hence really encourage you all to submit your work to the prize; it is a very easy process, there’s nothing to lose, but a great deal of good stuff can happen as a result!
John Craske Winner of the 2015 Prize
I have happy memories of the IMA Lighthill-Thwaites Prize and felt very fortunate to have been nominated alongside such talented mathematicians. It was a pleasure to meet the other nominees and hear about their work in presentations before meeting Professor Dame Celia Hoyles to conclude a sunny week of mathematics in Cambridge.
Receiving recognition for my work, having not expected to be shortlisted for the prize, gave me encouragement to pursue research in applied mathematics and inspired me to help other people discover and learn about mathematics. I think that the IMA Lighthill-Thwaites Prize is therefore a fantastic initiative and I encourage all eligible and aspiring applied mathematicians to apply!