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Press Release:
MEDIA CONTACT: Linda Holtz
561-297-0159, lholtz@fau.edu
FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Hosts Second Annual Science Hall of Fame Lecture and Reception
BOCA RATON, FL (February 28, 2006) - Florida Atlantic University held its second annual FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Hall of Fame Distinguished Lecture and Awards Ceremony. This year’s honorees were Dr. Benoit Mandelbrot and FAU professor Dr. Heinz-Otto Peitgen. Internationally esteemed mathematicians, Mandelbrot and Peitgen were inducted into the Hall of Fame at a special ceremony on the Boca Raton campus hosted by FAU President Frank T. Brogan ’81 and Schmidt College of Science Dean Nathan Dean. Special awards were presented to the inductees as part of the ceremony. More than 250 members of the faculty, staff, student body and community were in the audience to hear each mathematician speak about his groundbreaking work with fractal geometry.
A reception at the Eleanor R. Baldwin House followed the lectures. Both guests of honor were in attendance to answer questions about their work. The event was underwritten by Gold sponsor Boca Raton Community Hospital, and Silver sponsors Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP and NABI Pharmaceuticals.
As the creator of fractal geometry, Mandelbrot is considered to be one of the most creative mathematicians in history. In his seminal work, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Mandelbrot uses mathematically generated images (fractals) to explain the concepts of order, chaos and social phenomena. Born in Warsaw, Poland, and educated in France, and later at Caltech and Princeton, Mandelbrot is a Bartelle Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University and IBM Fellow Emeritus in Physics.
With Mandelbrot’s work as his foundation, Peitgen applies fractal theory to medicine. Aided by fractal images, Peitgen is able to provide radiologists using MRIs to diagnose breast cancer with enhanced three-dimensional detailed views of possible tumors. Peitgen has worked closely with the Boca Raton Community Hospital’s Center for Breast Care on the development of this project. He has also employed similar techniques in the detection of liver tumors. Earning his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Bonn, Germany, Peitgen is currently a professor of mathematics and biomedical sciences at FAU and mathematics at the University of Bremen, Germany. In addition, he is the president and CEO of the Center for Medical Diagnostic Systems and Visualizations (MeVis), which he founded in 1995. For the past 12 years Peitgen has consulted with the National Science Foundation to improve math teaching in the public schools.
In 2005, Dr. James D. Watson, Nobel Laureate in Medicine, who co-discovered the double helix structure of DNA, and Dr. Herbert Weissbach, professor and director of FAU’s Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, were the inaugural inductees into the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Hall of Fame.
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