Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics David Mumford joined an exclusive list of renowned scholars that includes James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA structure and Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel Prizes, on Friday.
Mumford will officially receive the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest scientific honor, in a ceremony later this year at the White House. Since 1959, the medal has been awarded by the U.S. President to individuals "deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to knowledge," according to the National Science Foundation website.
Originally interested in pursuing physics as a child, Mumford said he fell in love with mathematics as an undergraduate. "I got to quantum field theory and it was really too complicated for me," he joked. "Math is simple — it's nice and straightforward."
After studying algebraic geometry and other pure math for about 20 years at Harvard, Mumford shifted his focus to applied math and computer vision. Though he always had an interest in understanding the way the brain works, he said he saw artificial intelligence as a field that "was trying to do too much all at once."
Concentrating on eyesight seemed to be more manageable and useful. At the time, vision seemed like "a simple mechanism that a computer would be able to replicate," Mumford said. As it turned out, "that is not actually the case."
Mumford made the move from Harvard to Brown in 1996, joining the Department of Applied Mathematics. "I decided to move here because the group was really fabulous," he said. "There were people studying vision in multiple areas."
Mumford also noted that the atmosphere at each university was "completely different." Though he regularly spoke to Harvard colleagues in various departments, "everyone seemed focused on becoming the world's top expert in field X," Mumford said. At Brown, "there was much more of a collegiate spirit and enthusiasm, with seminars crossing department lines and faculty always looking in new directions."
Though his last graduate student advisee graduated in May, Mumford said he maintains ties to Brown and his previous collaborators both here and at other institutions, splitting his time between Providence and Maine.
Though Mumford has had various academic interests throughout his career, he said math has always been his dominant passion.
"The charm of math is that you're completely in control. If you can figure out the logic of it, you can discover these things," Mumford said. "You don't have to get Ferdinand and Isabella to give you a boat to sail across the ocean."
