Nour Khoudari awarded 2025 Ivo and Renata Babuška Thesis Prize from AMS
11-14-2024
Nour Khoudari, visiting assistant professor at the Purdue University Mathematics Department, has been awarded the American Mathematical Society’s 2025 Ivo and Renata Babuška Thesis Prize. This prize was given in recognition of the outstanding contributions in her Temple University PhD thesis titled “From Microscopic to Macroscopic Scales: Traffic Waves and Sparse Control.”
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is dedicated to advancing research and connecting the diverse global mathematical community through publications, meetings, and conferences, MathSciNet, professional services, advocacy, and awareness programs. The Ivo and Renata Babuška Thesis Prize is awarded annually to the author of an outstanding PhD thesis in mathematics, interdisciplinary in nature, possibly with applications to other fields.
According to an announcement from AMS on November 14, 2024, Khoudari says, “I am truly honored to receive the 2025 Ivo and Renata Babuška Thesis Prize. I’m grateful for the kindness of Ivo and Renata Babuška and the AMS in establishing and organizing a prize that recognizes the interdisciplinary work of recent math doctoral graduates. I want to extend my sincere appreciation to my advisor, Benjamin Seibold, for his invaluable guidance and support that helped shape both my thesis and my mathematical maturity. I want to also extend my gratitude to the math department at Temple University for providing a stimulating research environment and for nominating me. I’m thankful for all my collaborators, especially in CIRCLES, a project aiming at improving traffic flow and energy savings in a mixed human-autonomous setup. This project motivated a huge part of my thesis and involved conducting the first experiment of its kind executed on the largest scale ever, with 100 Connected Autonomous Vehicles deployed into traffic on I-24 in Nashville. I’m also very thankful for my postdoctoral mentor, Alexandria Volkening at Purdue University, for introducing me to Topological Data Analysis and opening new research paths. Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to my family for their constant support. This prize further motivates me to continue contributing to interdisciplinary research in applied mathematics.”
Khoudari completed her PhD at Temple University in 2024 under the supervision of Benjamin Seibold after receiving her MS degree from the American University of Beirut and BS degree from the Lebanese American University. She is currently a Golomb Visiting Assistant Professor at Purdue University, working with Volkening.
The prize will be presented to Khoudari at the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle.