UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Paul A. Milewski has been named the new head of the Department of Mathematics in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, effective Aug. 1. Milewski succeeds Mark Levi, who has served as head of the department since 2018.
“Paul is an accomplished mathematician and has a strong record of thoughtful and effective leadership,” said Tracy Langkilde, Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Eberly College of Science and professor of biology at Penn State. “He is passionate about the future success and reputation of the department and has the background and experience to be a strong advocate. I am excited to work with him to achieve an even higher level of success for the Department of Mathematics.”
In his research, Milewski investigates fluid dynamics — in particular, wave propagation and geophysical flows — using analytical, numerical and asymptotic studies. He was honored with a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award in 2011 and was named a Vilas Associate by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 2007. He was an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in 1997, a Lilly Teaching Fellow in 1997, and he was awarded the Stanford University Harold M. Bacon Mathematics Teaching Award in 1994.
“I am excited and honored to have been appointed as head of mathematics,” Milewski said. “The department at Penn State has a distinguished place in the development of several fields of mathematics, and I hope that I can help make it an even better place for research and learning.”
Currently, Milewski is a professor of mathematics and co-director of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Statistical Applied Mathematics at the University of Bath in England. He joined the faculty there in 2011 and was head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences from 2017 to 2022. Prior to that, he was at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from 1995 to 2011, where he advanced through the academic ranks from assistant professor to associate professor in 1999, and to professor in 2003. Milewski was appointed as a Professor Visitante Especial at Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 2013 to 2016; a professeur invité at Université de Savoie in Chambéry, France, in 2011; a professeur invité at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, in Cachan, France, from 2008 to 2009; and a visiting professor at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada, from 2001 to 2002. He was the Gabor Szegö Assistant Professor at Stanford University from 1993 to 1995 and a research fellow in geophysical fluid dynamics at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1991.
Milewski earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering at Boston University in 1988 and 1989, respectively, and a doctoral degree in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993.