Pauline van den Driessche

In mathematical biology, van den Driessche's contributions include important work on delay differential equations and on Hopf bifurcations,^[1][4] and the effects of changing population size and immigration on epidemics.^[3]

She has also done more fundamental research in linear algebra, motivated by applications in mathematical biology.^[3] Her work in this area includes pioneering contributions to the theory of combinatorial matrix theory in which she proved connections between the sign pattern of a matrix and its stability,^[1][3][4] as well as results on matrix decomposition.^[3]

In 2005, the journal Linear Algebra and its Applications published a special issue in her honor.^[1] She was the 2007 winner of the Krieger–Nelson Prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society,^[3] and in the same year became the inaugural Olga Taussky-Todd Lecturer, an award given every four years at the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics by the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and Association for Women in Mathematics.^[4] In 2013 she became a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics "for contributions to linear algebra and mathematical biology".^[5] She received the CAIMS Research Prize from the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society in 2019,^[6] and the 2022 Hans Schneider Prize in Linear Algebra.