The Bellman Prize is a biennial award to a research team or single investigator, whose Mathematical Bioscience article has made an outstanding contribution to their research field over the last five years.
Nominations are now open for any Mathematical Biosciences original research paper published in the years 2016 and 2017. The prize committee does not consider self-nominations, but anyone else can submit a nomination. We encourage you to ask a colleague to nominate your work. Papers published by the Editor-in-Chief or Deputy Editor cannot be nominated.
A complete nomination package consists of:
- A letter of nomination of at most two pages.
- A citation of the research paper (approximately 100 words)
- Optional: two letters of support for the nomination
Nominations must be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, Santiago Schnell, via email to schnells@umich.edu. The deadline for nominations is March 1st, 2021.
History of the Bellman Prize
The Bellman Prize was established in 1985 in honor of Dr. Richard Bellman (1920–1984) founder and Editor-in-Chief of Mathematical Biosciences. Between 1985 to 2015, the Bellman Prize was awarded every two years for the best paper published in Mathematical Biosciences over the preceding two years.
Richard Bellman was an American applied mathematician who, in the 1940s and 1950s, developed the method of dynamic programming, which subdivides the task of optimizing a complex problem dynamically into solutions of smaller sub-problems that are easier to manage. At the time, dynamic programming offered an efficiency never seen before, and by now it has become a standard technique in applied mathematics and computer science. Bellman also coined the term curse of dimensionality, which continues to be a particular challenge for the mathematical analysis of many biological systems. Later in life, Bellman devoted his talents to mathematical analyses in biology and medicine and founded the journal Mathematical Biosciences in 1967. Bellman was named Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1975, a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1977, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1983. The Bellman Prize was established shortly after his death.
Award
The Bellman Prize is awarded at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology to the corresponding authors of the selected Mathematical Biosciences publication. The prize recipient receives a plaque, travel reimbursement of $1,250 to attend the annual meeting, and an announcement in Mathematical Biosciences, with a citation of the research paper. For more information, please visit: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/mathematical-biosciences/news/bellman-prize-announcement
