Nina Nikolaevna Uraltseva is Professor of Mathematics and head of Mathematical Physics at St. Petersburg University. She is a well-known specialist in the field of nonlinear partial differential equations. Her fundamental results in elliptic and parabolic PDE's have influenced generations of mathematicians working in these areas. Uraltseva received her Ph.D. from St. Petersburg State Pedagogical University in 1960. Her thesis, written under the direction of
Olga Ladyzhenskaya, was on "Regularity of Solutions of Multidimensional Elliptic Equations and Variational Problems." She has written, together with Ladyzhenskaya, articles and books on partial differential equations that have become classics in the field. The review of
Linear and Quasilinear Equations of Elliptic Type, written in 1964 with English and French translations appearing in 1966, said that the book "contains solutions of a series of basic problems the study of which began at the beginning of the century, starting with the works of S. N. Bernstein. These results were obtained during the last few years and are presented in a monograph for the first time. The book is of scientific interest and enables one to get acquainted with a difficult field to which a large number of articles has been devoted." A sequel on equations of parabolic type appeared four years later. Their early theory is still regarded as the basis of linear and nonlinear PDE's.
Uraltseva continues to be an active scholar, tutoring doctoral students and writing new papers. She has written or edited over 150 research articles and books [MathSciNet]. In June 2005, a meeting was held on "Classics in PDE" at the KTH Institute for Mathematics, Stockholm, in honor of Uraltseva's 70th birthday. In 2006 KTH conferred upon her an Honorary Doctorship.
Two videos of Nina Uraltseva from the 2006 MSRI workshop on "Women in Mathematics: The Legacy of Ladyzhenskaya and Oleinik" are available at the workshop's website (scroll down to the end of the page). The first video is of her talk on "Free Boundary Problems of Obstacle Type." The second video is from the "Historical round table about 2 Olgas."
References
- Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Classics in PDE, meeting at KTH
- KTH Press Release, October 18, 2006
