Luis Caffarelli
An emeritus faculty member in UT Austin’s department of mathematics, Caffarelli won the top prize in mathematics, the Abel Prize, in 2023. Widely recognized as the world's leading specialist in free-boundary problems for nonlinear partial differential equations, he did ground-breaking work on Navier-Stokes equations, which describe the behavior of fluids in their environments, helping biomedical researchers describe how blood flows through the body and petroleum engineers predict the flow of oil. He is the winner of other major international awards, including the Wolf Prize and the Shaw Prize.