Wolfram Innovator Award 2013

Wolfram technologies have long been a major force in many areas of industry and research. Leaders in many top organizations and institutions have played a major role in using computational intelligence and pushing the boundaries of how the Wolfram technology stack is leveraged for innovation across fields and disciplines.

We recognize these deserving recipients with the Wolfram Innovator Award, which is awarded at the Wolfram Technology Conferences around the world.

Keith Stroyan

Areas: Education, Mathematics

As a mathematics professor at the University of Iowa, Keith Stroyan was an early adopter of Mathematica in calculus courses, reaching around 6,000 students and 100 teaching assistants in 24 years. In 2005, he was awarded Teacher of the Year by the Mathematical Association of America based on his work developing Mathematica course materials. Stroyan also conducted an early study showing that students who used Mathematica in calculus courses performed better in subsequent courses, even in traditional courses without much technology. In addition to these achievements, Stroyan developed one of the first custom kernel Mathematica programs, Calculus Wiz, and published the first CDF in a scientific journal. His work on iMultiCalc 2013 CDF edition continues to push the boundaries in delivering textbook content.

Dr. Thomas Weber

Areas: Data Mining and Analysis, Finance, Financial Risk, Risk Analysis

Thomas Weber is recognized as an expert on quantitative methods in finance and risk. Being a heavy user of Mathematica since Version 1.2, Thomas utilizes this powerful tool for his consultancy for big banks, energy suppliers, and other institutions. Over these many years he has extended Mathematica as needed. For example, he developed a database link long before the Data Access Kit was available. He also integrated different pricing libraries into Mathematica, which allow kinds of risk analysis that go way beyond what is normally possible within financial institutions.

Jacqueline Zizi

Areas: Education

Jacqueline Zizi is a passionate and family-centered individual (mother of six and grandmother of 14) who loves mathematics and computation. She has been using Mathematica as a programming language for education and teaching as well as providing her Wolfram Training instructor services all around France. Furthermore, she wrote a simulation tool for high-risk boat navigation (CGA, Alstom Group), a tour in a protein associating music and zooming for IHES, and a conjecture about Grothendieck invariants solved in the special case of graph theory for Professor O. Mathieu in abstract mathematics. Twenty years ago Jacqueline wrote a trilogy of books in French about general considerations in programming and mathematics for education purposes. After the national curriculum was changed, leading to “Polytechnique” and “Grandes Écoles,” she published a book following such a curriculum which, although old, is still for sale.