Applied Mathematics and Statistics Department Establishes Dissertation Prize in Honor of Long-Time Stony Brook Professor Woo Jong Kim

The Applied Mathematics and Statistics Department recently honored long-time faculty member Professor Woo Jong Kim, who passed away on August 4, 2004, with the Woo Jong Kim Dissertation Prize. This annual prize will be awarded for the best dissertation in Applied Mathematics and Statistics.

Professor Kim was born in North Korea, and was separated from his parents during the Korean War. He came to the U.S. for graduate school in 1958, first at Oklahoma State University and later at Carnegie-Mellon University, and earned Ph.D.'s in both Chemical Engineering and Mathematics. He joined the faculty at Stony Brook in 1968. His research specialty was ordinary differential equations.

Professor Kim was an active member of the University community, having served on a number of departmental, college and university-wide committees. Starting in 1976, he became Graduate Program Director in the Department of Applied Math and Statistics, a position he held for all but five years. He took a great interest in the department's graduate students and was regarded as a supportive and effective mentor to hundreds of students. He was also a member of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America, and published extensively throughout his long career.

The first two recipients of the award are Sribasti Dutta, for her dissertation under Professor James Glimm on supernova simulations; and Nathan Tintle for his dissertation under Professor Stephen Finch on sampling designs in statistics.

According to Professor Alan Tucker, "For two decades, Woo Jong worried about the welfare of the Applied Math graduate students like a concerned parent. Students sensed this and they confided their problems, academic and personal, with him and even the problems of fellow students too embarrassed to speak to him themselves. Students may never believe this but he felt that he got more out of his work with students than they did."

Those wishing to make a gift may send a check payable to Stony Brook Foundation Acct #299770 c/o Prof. Alan Tucker, Applied Mathematics & Statistics, SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3600 or go to the SBF secure server at https://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/DoIT/giving2sb.nsf/fund .Your generosity can acknowledge Prof. Kim's life and work and create a lasting tribute to honor him.