Hermann Flaschka

Hermann Flaschka was a Professor of Mathematics at The University of Arizona, where he served from 1972 until his retirement in 2018. He earned a B.S. in Mathematics from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970, with a dissertation on asymptotic expansions and hyperbolic equations with multiple characteristics advised by Gilbert Strang. Before joining the University of Arizona, Flaschka held a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie-Mellon University from 1970 to 1972. During his distinguished career at Arizona, he served as Head of the Mathematics Department from 1996 to 2001, fostering strengths in applied mathematics, number theory, geometry, and mathematics education, and contributing to the establishment of the Undergraduate Math Center and the department's first VIGRE grant. He played a central role in the early development of the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Applied Mathematics. Flaschka held visiting positions including Visiting Professor at Clarkson University in 1978-1979, Visiting Professor at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Kyoto, Japan in 1980-1981, and Visiting Scholar at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2002. He delivered lectures at institutions such as the Rocky Mountain Mathematics Consortium Summer School, the South American Winter School in Physics, and the CIMPA Summer School in Nice.

Flaschka's research specializations encompassed integrable systems, symplectic and Poisson geometry in convexity theorems, representation theory, and zero-dispersion limits of integrable equations. He was a pioneering figure in nonlinear science, notably establishing the integrability of the Toda lattice through the Flaschka transformation and developing insights into nonlinear lattices, soliton theory, Bäcklund transformations, and algebro-geometric approaches. Key publications include 'The Toda lattice. II. Existence of integrals' (Physical Review B, 1974), 'Monodromy- and spectrum-preserving deformations I' with A.C. Newell (Communications in Mathematical Physics, 1980), 'Kac-Moody Lie algebras and soliton equations II and III' with A.C. Newell and T. Ratiu (Physica D, 1983), 'A Schur-Horn-Kostant convexity theorem for the diffeomorphism group of the annulus' with A.M. Bloch and T. Ratiu (Inventiones Mathematicae, 1993), and 'Bending flows for sums of rank one matrices' with J. Millson (Canadian Journal of Mathematics, 2005). He co-founded the journal Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena in 1980 and served as co-editor. Flaschka supervised nine Ph.D. students at the University of Arizona. His contributions earned him the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics in 1995 from the American Mathematical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, as well as election as a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012. His graduate textbook notes, Principles of Analysis, have been integral to core courses in the Applied Mathematics program for over 30 years, influencing generations of students and researchers by bridging pure and applied mathematics.

Professional Email: flaschka@math.arizona.edu