Chris Rycroft is an applied mathematician and joined the Department of Mathematics in the Fall of 2022. He is interested in mathematical modeling and scientific computation for interdisciplinary applications, and he has collaborated in a variety of fields such as materials science, physics and biology. Before moving to Madison, Rycroft was the John L. Loeb Associate Professor in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In 2021, he received the Everett Mendelsohn Award for excellence in graduate mentoring. From 2010–2013, Rycroft was a Morrey Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. Rycroft is a visiting faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, where he has worked on several projects relating to energy production and efficiency. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 2007 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A word from Timo Seppäläinen, John and Abigail Van Vleck Chair of Mathematics:
The Mathematics Department congratulates Chris Rycroft on his promotion to Full Professor with tenure. Chris and his wife Marta Gaglia came to UW-Madison through an enormous joint recruitment effort between SMPH and the Math Department, with crucial help from L&S, the Provost’s Office, and OVCRGE. Chris comes to Madison from Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is well-known for his modeling and simulations in solid mechanics, as well as for his mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students. These contributions have been recognized by an NSF CAREER award and the Everett Mendelsohn Award for Excellence in Mentorship from Harvard. Chris’s research has been featured several times in the New York Times on such widely varying topics as the mathematics and physics of crumpling and the development in cricket embryos.