2025

Nathan Myhrvold

Intellectual Ventures

Areas: 3D Printing, Asteroids, Biostatistics, Computer Science, Global Health & Development, Image and Signal Processing, Image Processing, Nuclear Energy, Paleontology, Planetary Science, Statistics, Theoretical Physics

Dr. Nathan Myhrvold is a prominent scientist, technologist, inventor, author and food photographer. In a 14-year tenure at Microsoft, Myhrvold led advanced technology and business development groups, founded Microsoft Research, managed an R&D budget of $2 billion and served as the company’s chief strategist and chief technology officer. Myhrvold previously had cofounded Dynamical Systems Research, a software company, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, where his research with Professor Stephen Hawking centered on quantum theories of gravitation. Myhrvold has published peer-reviewed research in planetary science, paleontology and climate science.

In 2000, after retiring from Microsoft, Myhrvold founded Intellectual Ventures (IV), which he leads as CEO and one of its most prolific inventors, with more than 850 US patents awarded. Myhrvold is vice chairman of TerraPower, a pioneer in advanced nuclear energy. He also has served as an adviser to startup companies that IV has launched to commercialize advanced metamaterials technologies.

Myhrvold is the author of seven Modernist Cuisine culinary and photography books and pioneer of innovative photography techniques and equipment. His most recent landscape photography book Natural Wonders is published by National Geographic and is on sale now.

Myhrvold holds a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics, as well as a master’s degree in mathematical economics, from Princeton University. His master’s degree in geophysics and space physics, as well as his bachelor’s degree in mathematics, are from the University of California, Los Angeles.

2022

William A. Sethares

Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Areas: Computational Humanities, Computational Thinking, Computer-Aided Education, Courseware Development, Engineering, Image and Signal Processing, Image Processing, Signal Processing

Bill Sethares is a researcher and professor of electrical and computer engineering at the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, focusing on signal processing with applications in acoustics, image processing, communications and optimization.

At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Sethares attracts students from majors beyond engineering with his computationally rich image processing course material and project-based learning (all Wolfram Language–based, of course!). Sethares is a founding member of the LEOcode project and brings computation to art historians in the form of applications used to find patterns in watermarks and canvases. These can help to identify and date historical papers and paintings.

2020

Tomás de Camino-Beck

LEAD University

Areas: 3D Printing, Biomedical Research, Complex Systems, Computer Graphics and Visual Arts, Image and Signal Processing, Internet of Things, Software Development

Tomás de Camino-Beck is a professor, researcher, entrepreneur and music producer who has contributed to the fields of mathematical biology, satellite imaging, cellular automata and epidemiological modeling, among others. He has used Mathematica for teaching a range of mathematical subjects and hands-on maker activities like 3D printing and microcontroller programming, as well as for projects in generative design and music video creation. Most recently, he has helped develop several educational videos and a Wolfram Language–powered website for demonstrating agent-based COVID-19 models in conjunction with the Costa Rican news agency El Financiero.

2019

Dr. Jane Shen-Gunther

Doctor, Brooke Army Medical Center

Areas: Biomedical Research, High-Performance and Parallel Computing, Image and Signal Processing, Machine Learning, Molecular Biology

Dr. Jane Shen-Gunther is a medical doctor and researcher for the US Army, specializing in gynecologic oncology and obstetrics. She recently started using Mathematica and the Wolfram Language to advance her team’s research in HPV detection, automating the analysis of several gigabytes of image and instrument data and generating interactive visual reports for both patients and physicians. Dr. Shen-Gunther has also deployed her predictive model in the Wolfram Cloud to share access with other physicians. Her work has led to improved patient interactions, as well as better prediction of pap outcomes that impact underdeveloped countries.

2015

Paul Abbott

Associate Professor of Physics, University of Western Australia

Areas: Applied Mathematics, Computational Physics, Image and Signal Processing, Mathematical Modeling, Mathematics Courseware Design, Theoretical Physics

Paul Abbott has used Mathematica extensively for research in wavelets and few-body atomic physics and to explore problems in computational and mathematical physics. He received a computational science award for his course in computational physics and has lectured on Mathematica in the United States, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and India, and at several Australian universities. Abbott worked for Wolfram Research from 1989 to 1991, has served as a contributing editor of The Mathematica Journal since 1990, and has worked as a consultant to Wolfram Research since 1997.