Mary Wheeler facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Mary Fanett Wheeler
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| Born | December 28, 1938 Cuero, Texas, US
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Texas (BS, BA, MA) Rice University (PhD) |
| Known for | numerical methods for PDEs, domain decomposition |
| Awards | Theodore von Kármán Prize Humboldt Prize |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Numerical Analysis Partial Differential Equations Scientific Computation |
| Institutions | Rice University University of Houston University of Texas |
| Thesis | A Priori L2 Error Estimates for Galerkin Approximations to Parabolic Partial Differential Equations (1971) |
| Doctoral advisor | Henry H. Rachford, Jr. Jim Douglas, Jr. |
| Doctoral students | |
Mary Fanett Wheeler (born December 28, 1938) is a famous American mathematician. She is known for using math to solve real-world problems. Her work helps us understand things like how water or oil moves underground.
In 1998, Mary Wheeler was chosen to be part of the National Academy of Engineering. This was because of her amazing work. She helped create computer programs that can guess how liquids flow deep under the ground. In 2009, she received the Theodore von Kármán Prize. This award is given to people who do great work in applied mathematics.
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Early Life and Education
Mary Fanett Wheeler was born in Cuero, Texas, on December 28, 1938. She loved learning and studied at the University of Texas. There, she earned two bachelor's degrees in 1960. One was in social sciences, and the other was in mathematics.
She continued her studies and earned a master's degree in 1963. Later, in 1971, she earned her PhD from Rice University. She focused on advanced math problems during her studies.
What Mary Wheeler Studied
Mary Wheeler is an expert in a field called numerical analysis. This means she uses computers and math to solve very complex problems. She often studies how liquids move through "porous media." Think of a sponge or underground rocks. These are porous because they have tiny holes.
Her work has many important uses. For example, she helps engineers figure out how to get oil out of the ground. She also works on cleaning up pollution. This includes spills of toxic waste and storing carbon dioxide underground.
Mary Wheeler also helped the United States Army Corps of Engineers. She worked with them on environmental projects. These projects looked at how human activities affect important bays. Some of these were the Chesapeake Bay and Florida Bay.
She once said that it's important for her to see her math work used in real life. Even when she works on very abstract math, she hopes it will help solve problems one day.
Where Mary Wheeler Worked
Mary Wheeler taught at Rice University from 1971 to 1995. For a short time, she also worked at the University of Houston. In 1995, she moved to the University of Texas at Austin.
At the University of Texas, she led a special center. It was called the Center for Subsurface Modeling. This center uses computers to study what happens deep underground. She retired from the University of Texas in 2024.
Mary Wheeler is also a registered Professional Engineer in Texas. In 1989, she gave a very important talk. It was called the Noether Lecture. Her talk was about using math to model how liquids flow in porous materials.
Awards and Honors
Mary Wheeler has received many awards for her important work.
- Noether Lecture (1989)
- Theodore von Kármán Prize (2009)
- Humboldt Prize (2011)
Memberships
Mary Wheeler is a member of several important groups. These groups are made up of top scientists and engineers.
- Fellow, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
- Society of Petroleum Engineers
- Fellow, International Association for Computational Mechanics
- National Academy of Engineering
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences
See also
In Spanish: Mary Wheeler para niños
