Yanguang (Charles) Li, who joined the MU faculty in fall 1999, has won a Guggenheim Fellowship for his impressive work in a series of three papers on partial differential equations. For the first time, Li established theorems on the existence of chaos in partial differential equations (PDEs).
Considered a breakthrough in the area, the work set up a general program for studying chaotic solutions to PDEs. Li combined mathematical tools from different areas, including partial differential equations, integrable theory and dynamical systems, to study the chaotic dynamics of partial differential equations.
"We are delighted to have Charles Li join our mathematics department," says Dean Richard Schwartz. "The Guggenheim Fellowship-very rarely awarded to assistant professors-is among the most competitive and most coveted of all national awards.
"Charles' success in receiving the fellowship at this stage of his career represents dramatic confirmation of the quality of his work by a discerning panel that is always overwhelmed with strong applications. The most senior faculty approach the Guggenheim Foundation with their best projects, knowing that the odds of receiving support are miniscule."
Li comes to MU from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and holds a 1993 doctoral degree from Princeton University. He works in chaos in partial differential equations and lattices, two dimensional turbulence, pattern formations, and singularity and regularity of fluids.
U.S. Sen. Simon Guggenheim and his wife established the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1925 to assist scholars and artists in their research. The one-year fellowships reward productive scholarship or exceptional creativity in the arts, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. In 1999 the foundation gave out more than $6 million in grants.
Li received another significant honor in 1998 when he received the 1998 AMS Centennial Fellowship, a one-year research grant from the American Mathematical Society. He used the Centennial Fellowship at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and at Harvard.
Li has served as a Hedrick Assistant Professor at UCLA, and he taught applied mathematics at MIT.