Published Dec 2, 2019
Prof. Dr. Michael Joswig, Einstein-Professor of discrete mathematics and geometry at the Technical University of Berlin was appointed Max Planck Fellow by the Max Planck Society. Alongside his full professorship in Berlin he will lead the newly founded mathematical software group at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig starting in December 2019. The Max Planck Fellow Programme promotes cooperation between outstanding university professors and Max Planck Society researchers.
Michael Joswig is a world leading expert in the field of polyhedral and geometric combinatorics as well as the development and integration of mathematical software. He is interested in all aspects of polyhedral, tropical and algorithmic geometry including topics such as optimization and combinatorial topology. One of his greatest scientific achievements is the design and development of the mathematical software system “polymake”, a collaborative project which matured into a powerful and widely used system with a wide range of applications.
“The dual technical expertise of Michael Joswig promises to be a tremendous enrichment of our research spectrum at the institute, as well as a unique stimulus for our scientific endeavors” according to Prof. Bernd Sturmfels, director of the institute and group leader. His nonlinear algebra group will continue to work with Joswig and extend the close collaboration to the newly founded group.
Joswig maintains a vigorous research program at the highest level, and he is an active member of several group grants. He plays a pivotal and visionary role in Berlin's new excellence cluster Math+. Currently he is working on a range of open problems in tropical geometry, such as the classification of smooth tropical cubic surfaces and f-vector conjecture for tropical linear spaces. Some of these projects have immediate applications in optimization and the mathematics of data, which is a field of growing interest at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig.
The main focus of his newly founded group at the MPI will be the development of mathematical software. Computer algebra and discrete algorithms are increasingly relevant to a wide variety of applications. According to Joswig mathematical software can function as a bridge, not only between the mathematical fields, but also in an interdisciplinary-fashion to various areas of research. The goal is to employ software to not only advance mathematical knowledge, but also make it more widely accessible. Initially he will be supported by one postdoc and one PhD student, recruited from the distinguished IMPRS graduate school. The new group will be fittingly initiated with the Mathematical Software Day, a one-day workshop taking place on December 3rd.
The software polymake matured into a powerful system with a wide range of applications. These include, e.g., tropical and algebraic geometry, combinatorial topology, as well as linear and discrete optimization. By now, polymake is being used consistently by at least 50 national and international research groups in mathematics, computer science, biology and chemistry. Several widely noted spinoff projects arose from polymake; they range from tools for mathematics education (e.g. the game MatchTheNet) to software for massively parallel high-performance computers (e.g. for enumerating triangulations). Joswig is an outspoken proponent of the usefulness and importance of mathematical software in all areas of mathematical research and beyond. He believes that the computer should be regarded as a similarly influential tool for mathematicians as the microscope is for biologists. He serves as the General Chair of the International Conference on Mathematical Software (ICMS), to take place in Braunschweig in 2020, on the Advisory Board of the Oberwolfach References on Mathematical Software (ORMS) and as a Principal Investigator of the SFB-TRR 195 Symbolic Tools in Mathematics and their Application. Along with his colleagues, he will develop the next generation computer algebra system OSCAR (open source computer algebra research).
Michael Joswig studied math and computer science at the University of Tübingen, as well as the ETH Zurich. He earned his PhD in Tübingen and his habilitation at the Technical University of Berlin. His poctoral studies lead him to the Research Institute for Symbolic Computation in Linz Austria, the Technical University of Berlin, as well as the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. In 2004 he was appointed professor of algorithmic discrete mathematics at Technische Universität Darmstadt. In 2013 he was appointed Einstein-professor of discrete mathematics and geometry at the Technical University of Berlin.
His international distinction is reflected in the numerous honors and scholarships, which led him to the Centre de Mathématique Appliquées der École Polytechnique, the Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu der Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, as well as the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley California.
Michael Joswig is actively engaged in the MATH+ research center in Berlin, the Berlin mathematical school, the collaborative research center SFB-TRR 195 “Symbolics Tools in Mathematics and their Application”, as well as SFB Transregio 109 “Discretization in Geometry and Dynamics”. He is also editor in various journals including the “Advances in Geometry” and the “SIAM Journal of Discrete Mathematics”, as well as an accomplished author of various articles in specialist media.
Information about Prof. Dr. Michael Joswig
Information about the Polymake software