Professor Peter Clarkson
Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science
University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Currently I am Professor of Mathematics at the University of Kent in
Canterbury, UK. I moved to Canterbury from the University of Exeter, where
I had been first a Lecturer then a Reader. Prior to Exeter, I spent time
in Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK), Clarkson University (Potsdam,
NY, USA), where I did a post-doc with Mark Ablowitz, and the University of
Birmingham, UK. I obtained both my B.A. and D.Phil. (under the supervision
of Bryce McLeod), from the University of Oxford.
My main research interests are primarily concerned with methods for
determining exact solutions of physically significant nonlinear partial
and ordinary differential equations. Such solutions have many important
applications including asymptotics of solutions of differential equations
and in the design, testing and evaluation of numerical algorithms. In
particular I am interested in soliton theory, especially the Painleve
equations, which are six second order, nonlinear ordinary differential
equations that have arisen in a variety of physical applications, can be
thought of as nonlinear special functions and also as symmetry reductions
of soliton equations. Further I am interested in symmetry reductions of
differential equations, in particular having developed the "direct method"
with Martin Kruskal. This method has yielded many new symmetry reductions
and exact solutions for several physically significant partial
differential equations and has stimulated interest in other
generalizations of the classical Lie group method.
I am a participant in the "Digital Library of Mathematical Functions"
project, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, USA. This project is
to update Abramowitz and Stegun's "Handbook of Mathematical Functions" and
my role is as the author of the chapter on Painleve transcendents.
Currently I am the chair of the SIAM Activity Group on "Orthogonal
Polynomials and Special Functions".
I have authored five books and more than 100 research papers. I am also a
member of the editorial board of European Journal of Applied Mathematics,
Journal of Nonlinear Mathematical Physics, Quarterly Journal of Mechanics
and Applied Mathematics and Studies in Applied Mathematics.
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