Computational Mathematics Branch:

Founded in 1955, the computational mathematics discipline in Peking University is among the earliest established computational mathematics disciplines and the earliest approved computational mathematics Ph.D. programs in China. It was rated as one of the first national key disciplines in the 1980s and was consecutively included in 2002, 2006, and 2012 by the Ministry of Education. 

The range of research in computational mathematics discipline covers Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations, Scientific and Engineering Computing, Computable Modeling, Numerical Algorithms and Mathematical Theory of Complex Fluid and Complex Flows, Numerical Linear Algebra, Stochastic Modeling and Simulation, Computational Optimization, Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning, Modeling and Algorithms in Imaging & Data Science, Computational Biology, etc.

Since China’s reform and opening up in the late 1970s, a series of fundamental contributions have been made in the computational mathematics discipline in Peking University. We have won more than twenty international and domestic honors/awards, among which there are National Prize of Natural Science (twice), the Theodore von Kármán Prize by SIAM (Society for Industry and Applied Mathematics), the Su Buchin Prize by CSIAM (Chinese Society for Industry and Applied Mathematics), the Feng Kang Prize of Scientific Computing (fifth), and the Outstanding Young Scholar Award by the Qiu Shi Science and Technology Foundation.

Now there are 15 faculties in total, which includes 7 full professors, 6 associate professors, and 2 tenure-track assistant professors. Eleven of them work in the School of Mathematical Sciences, and 4 in the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research. There are two academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences for the Advancement of Science in Developing Countries, 3 chair professors of the Changjiang Scholar Program of the Ministry of Education, one professor of National High-level Personnel of Special Support Program, and 5 recipients of the National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. Three of them were invited to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians, and 3 were invited to speak at the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics. In addition, more than eight members serve as editorial board members of international journals, and 3 serve as the current presidents of scientific societies in China.

Peking University’s computational mathematics discipline has fostered numerous talents, including the renowned Academician Xuan Wang and Academician Fuqing Yang from the early days, and in the recent 15 years, Profs. Jinchao Xu, Jie Shen, Linbo Zhang, Shi Jin, Xiaochuan Cai, Tao Tang, Xiaoping Wang, Pingwen Zhang, Hongkai Zhao and many other globally recognized computational mathematicians, as well as Profs. Ruo Li, Tiejun Li, Weiying Zheng, and many other distinguished young scholars in computational mathematics.

Information Science Branch:

The Department of Information Science in School of Mathematical Sciences was formally founded in 1995 as the successor of the Information Research Section but undertook teaching and research since 1971. The department also started the undergraduate and graduate programs on information science in the 1970s. Years later, in 1985, after approved by the Ministry of Education, the information science major was established. Currently, the department has 10 faculty members, including 1 Changjiang scholar, 2 Distinguished Young scholars, and 6 professors. They are engaged in information processing, theoretical computer science, software formality, information security, and other areas. The department aims to cultivate high-level specialized professionals that are proficient in both mathematical and computational theories and modern techniques on information science and computer science.