Applied Mathematics

Faculty and students interested in the applications of mathematics are an integral part of the Department of Mathematics; there is no formal separation between pure and applied mathematics, and the Department takes pride in the many ways in which they enrich each other. We also benefit tremendously from close collaborations with faculty and students in other departments at UC Berkeley as well as scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and visitors to the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.


The Department regularly offers courses in ordinary and partial differential equations and their numerical solution, discrete applied mathematics, the methods of mathematical physics, mathematical biology, the mathematical aspects of fluid and solid mechanics, approximation theory, scientific computing, numerical linear algebra, and mathematical aspects of computer science. Courses in probability theory, stochastic processes, data analysis and bioinformatics are offered by the Department of Statistics, while courses in combinatorial and convex optimization are offered by the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Our students are encouraged to take courses of mathematical interest in these and many other departments.

Topics explored intensively by our faculty and students in recent years include scientific computation and the mathematical aspects of quantum theory, computational genomics, image processing and medical imaging, inverse problems, combinatorial optimization, control, robotics, shape optimization, turbulence, hurricanes, microchip failure, MEMS, biodemography, population genetics, phylogenetics, and computational approaches to historical linguistics. Within the department we also have a Laboratory for Mathematical and Computational Biology.

Chair: Per-Olof Persson

Applied Mathematics Faculty, Courses, Dissertations

Meet Our Faculty