Math professor invited to exhibit at NSF's Arc of Science

On behalf of the National Science Foundation, UCLA professor of mathematics and director of applied mathematics Andrea Bertozzi will be exhibiting work at “The Arc of Science: Research to Results” in Washington,D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 15, an event to inform members of Congress and their staffs about the the impact NSF-funded research has on the real world. 

Participating along with invited NSF-funded scientists will be representatives from various sectors of the economy, from health care to education to industry, who use and benefit from these NSF-funded results on a daily basis. Bertozzi’s community partner is the Los Angeles Police Department. “The Arc of Science” is presented by the NSF and the Coalition for National Science Funding.

Bertozzi was a contributing researcher, mathematician and co-author on a study conducted by a UCLA-led team of scholars and law enforcement officials in which a mathematical model devised to guide where the Los Angeles Police Department should deploy officers led to substantially lower crime rates during a 21-month period. The model was so successful that the LAPD has adopted it for use in 14 of its 21 divisions. Developed using six years of mathematical research and a decade of police crime data, the program predicts times and places that serious crimes will occur based on historical crime data in a given area.

 Invitees will have the opportunity to speak directly with members of Congress and their staffs. Guests will enjoy participatory demonstrations of technologies directly stemming from foundation-funded research.

“The Arc of Science” speakers will include NSF Director France Córdova, Congressman Lamar Smith and Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.

An applied mathematician with expertise in nonlinear partial differential equations and fluid dynamics, Bertozzi has served as director of applied mathematics since 2005, overseeing the graduate and undergraduate research training programs at UCLA. She also works in the areas of geometric methods for image processing, crime modeling and analysis, and swarming/cooperative dynamics.