Topic #5   ------------   OP-SF NET 5.1  ------------ January 15, 1998
                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: Tom Koornwinder 
Subject: Arno Kuijlaars receives 1998 Popov prize

The following is based on a message from Prof. Jaap Korevaar
 and on the URL
http://math.vanderbilt.edu/events/approx.html
I congratulate Arno.

                Tom Koornwinder 

---------------------------------------------------------

On January 4, 1998 Dr. A.B.J. ("Arno") Kuijlaars received the
international Popov prize. 

The second Vasil A. Popov Prize was awarded at the Ninth Texas
International Conference on Approximation Theory held in January 1998 in
Nashville, Tennessee.  The prize has been established in memory of Vasil
A. Popov and his contributions to approximation theory and related areas
of mathematics. 

The prize is awarded every three years for outstanding research
contributions in fields related to Vasil Popov's work. Albert Cohen was
the first recipient of the Vasil A. Popov Prize awarded in 1995. 
Eligibility for the current prize was restricted to mathematicians who did
not have their terminal degree on June 1, 1991. The winner of the prize
was asked to deliver a plenary lecture at the Texas conference. 

The Selection Committee for the Vasil A. Popov Prize consisted of Charles
Chui, Ronald A. DeVore, Paul Nevai, Alan Pinkus, Pencho Petrushev, and
Edward Saff. 

Arno received the prize for his innovating applications of potential
theory to various problems from approximation theory.  Nowadays this
concerns in particular the accurate study of equilibrium distributions on
a conductor in the presence of an exterior field; cf. [1]. 

Kuijlaars obtained his PhD in 1991 at the University of Utrecht on a topic
from abstract potential theory, under the guidance of Prof. E.M.J. Bertin.
He started with his present, more concrete work as a post-doc at the
University of Amsterdam (1992-1995) under the guidance of Prof. J. 
Korevaar.  He also worked for a short period with the well-known
approximation theory specialist Prof. E. Saff at the University of South
Florida (Tampa), with the numerical analyst Prof. W. Gautschi at Purdue
University (Lafayette, Indiana) and with the approximation theory
specialist Prof. W. Van Assche in Leuven (Belgium). At the moment he is
working at the City University of Hong Kong with Prof. R. Wong.  He will
soon take up a more permanent position at the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven.

Kuijlaars' current e-mail address is:  maarno@math.cityu.edu.hk

_________
[1] E.B. Saff and V. Totik, Logarithmic potentials with external fields.
Grundlehren der Math. Wissenschaften, vol. 316, Springer, Berlin, 1997.