Agnes Scott College

Nina Uraltseva

Nina Uraltseva

May 24, 1935 -


Nina Nikolaevna Uraltseva is Professor of Mathematics and head of the Section of Mathematical Physics and Partial Differential Equations at Saint Petersburg State University (founded in 1819, renamed Leningrad State University in 1924, then returned to being called Saint Petersburg State University in 1991). 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 was born in Leningrad, Russia, in 1935. She graduated from Leningrad State University in 1956 with a degree in physics. Uraltseva received her first Ph.D. from Leningrad State 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 received a second doctoral science degree in 1964. 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 became a full professor in the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics at Leningrad University in 1966, and was named Head of the Section of Mathematical Physics and Partial Differential Equations in 1977, a position she has held ever since. She has served on numerous editorial boards and received many honors. In the 1960's, she was awarded the Chebyshev Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the State Prize of the USSR. In 1005 Uraltseva was chosen to give the 2005 European Mathematical Society annual lectures, and in 2006 she received the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

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 for her outstanding contributions to mathematics.

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

  1. Darya Apushkinskaya, Arshak Petrosyan, and Henrik Shahgholian. "Nina Nikolaevna Uraltseva", Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 69, No. 3 (March 2022), 385-395.
  2. Laptev, Ari. "Nina N. Uraltseva. On the Occasion of her 75th Birthday," Journal of Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 159, No. 1, 2009, 1-3. [Available online at http://www.springer.com/mathematics/journal/10958?detailsPage=societies]
  3. Author Profile at zbMath
  4. Mathematics Genealogy Project