SIAM News Blog
Happening Now

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month 2025

To honor National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15), SIAM highlighting the contributions and accomplishments of Hispanic and Latin American mathematicians in our community. Throughout September and October, we invite you to read the personal stories of Dr. Irma García-Calvillo, Dr. Pablo Moriano, Dr. Daniel Szyld, and Dr. Luz de Teresa below, and explore the resources and networks tailored for Hispanic and Latin American mathematicians.

Irma García-Calvillo

Dr. Irma García-Calvillo is a research professor at the Center for Research in Applied Mathematics at the Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila in northern Mexico. She earned her bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from the same university, followed by a master’s degree in mathematical sciences at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León.

Dr. García-Calvillo’s research focuses on optimization and mathematical modeling, with particular emphasis on combinatorial and multi-objective optimization. She applies these techniques to problems such as vehicle routing for the transportation of goods and people, job-shop scheduling, and the design of metaheuristic algorithms. More recently, she has extended her work into the field of machine learning, especially its application to diabetes research.

Deeply passionate about applied mathematics, Dr. García-Calvillo is involved in projects that address real-world challenges within her community. These include initiatives focused on solid waste collection, developing indicators to improve women’s quality of life, and strengthening bicycle transportation infrastructure. While these topics may seem diverse, she finds that mathematics provides a powerful framework for creating solutions that make a tangible, positive impact, which makes her work especially fulfilling.

Dr. García-Calvillo has been a SIAM member for 31 years, having first joined as a student. For her, SIAM has always represented a community full of opportunities that connects her with others in applied mathematics and supports her growth through high-quality publications and resources that continue to inspire her research. In 2018, she was invited by Dr. Gerardo Hernández, Dr. Jorge Velasco, and Dr. Daniel Olmos to join the Executive Board for the reactivation of the Mexico Section of SIAM, where she served as secretary. The following year, she helped organize the first Mexico Section of SIAM Annual Meeting—an event that has since become a yearly tradition, growing in participation, academic quality, and diversity of topics in applied mathematics. In 2022, she served as the main organizer when the meeting was hosted at her institution, the Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila in Saltillo, Mexico. The experience was a meaningful opportunity to showcase SIAM’s impact and the relevance of applied and industrial mathematics to her local community.

For early-career professionals and students, Dr. García-Calvillo encourages active engagement with the opportunities SIAM offers: “Get involved in student chapters, participate in their activities, and make the most of the support that international societies like SIAM provide for your academic and professional growth,” she said. She also emphasizes the importance of curiosity and initiative—qualities that drive both personal development and the progress of applied mathematics itself.

“This field will continue to be vital for addressing the challenges ahead,” she added. “Build a strong academic foundation, contribute meaningful solutions, and make a real impact on your community. The future of applied mathematics is in your hands.”

Pablo Moriano

Dr. Pablo Moriano is a research scientist in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in East Tennessee, U.S. Born and raised in Colombia, he is the first in his family to attend college. His path in science began with a love for math and physics, which eventually led him to earn his M.S. and B.S. in electrical engineering from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia, followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. in informatics from Indiana University.

Dr. Moriano’s research focuses on data science, machine learning, and network modeling, with a particular emphasis on detecting unusual or malicious behavior in large, interconnected systems. These systems can be anything from the power grid to transportation networks, to the cyber-physical systems that keep our infrastructure running. His work spans the detection of exceptional events in social media, the prevention of internet route hijacking, the identification of insider threats in version control systems, and the improvement of intrusion detection in cyber-physical systems. Dr. Moriano’s research has received support from the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, ORNL’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, and Cisco Research.

He currently leads technical work at Sparsitute, a Department of Energy institute that develops methods based on sparse computations to make scientific computing and engineering simulations more efficient and reliable. Dr. Moriano also led a $1.5 million project at ORNL to design adaptive methods for anomaly detection that can identify threats early, reduce false alarms, and help systems recover quickly after an attack. Through his work, he aims to create scientific and technological solutions that make our world safer and more resilient, while mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Dr. Moriano has been a SIAM member for four years and was named a 2024 MGB-SIAM Early Career Fellow, a recognition that celebrates the achievements of early career applied mathematicians. A highlight of his fellowship thus far was organizing a minisymposium that brought together researchers from academia, industry, and other national laboratories to explore how applied mathematics and data science can strengthen cybersecurity. The discussions and connections from that event continue to shape his work today. He has also presented talks and served as a panelist within SIAM, actively engaging with the applied mathematics, computational science, and data science communities.

For Dr. Moriano, SIAM is one of the most meaningful professional communities he belongs to – not just for its focus on mathematics, but for how it connects math to real-world problems and brings together people from diverse disciplines to solve them. Through his SIAM involvement, he has gained a deeper understanding of the role SIAM committees play in guiding organization and supporting its members. Being a part of SIAM has shown him how professional societies operate and how individuals can contribute beyond their own research, while reinforcing his belief that science is a community effort. The network, the shared resources, and collaborative spirit have all been instrumental in shaping his research and career path.

One piece of advice Dr. Moriano would like to share with early-career professionals is to treat a career as a journey, not a straight line. “Opportunities will come in unexpected ways, and sometimes the path you planned will change,” he said. “That’s not a setback, it’s a chance to grow in ways you might not have imagined.”

He added that persistence often matters more than perfect preparation, recalling times early in his career when projects didn’t go as planned but growth came through learning, mentorship, and collaborations outside his comfort zone. Just as important, he encouraged professionals to invest in people as much as technical skills, noting that the trust and relationships built along the way often open doors that expertise alone cannot. Above all, Dr. Moriano urged them to hold on to their sense of purpose—something that continues to guide his own work using science and technology to make a positive difference and helping others see themselves in STEM careers.

Daniel Szyld

Dr. Daniel Szyld is a mathematics professor at Temple University and the President of the International Linear Algebra Society. His interest in numerical analysis began as an undergraduate at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, a foundation that led to his Ph.D. from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University (1983) and shaped the rest of his career.

Photo credit: Nicola Mastronardi
Photo credit: Nicola Mastronardi

He has contributed widely to numerical linear algebra and matrix computations, including eigenvalue problems, sparse matrix techniques, Schwarz preconditioning and domain decomposition, Krylov subspace methods, and asynchronous iterative methods. Early in his career as a numerical analyst, he followed his advisor's interests in numerical linear algebra while applying these tools to input-output economic models.

From the start of his career, the triennial SIAM Conference on Applied Linear Algebra has been a focal point of interest and his introduction to SIAM. As a SIAM member for 41 years, he has served in many capacities: SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications associate editor (2003-15) and Editor-in-Chief (2015-20), Richard C. DiPrima Prize committee member (2005-06), Chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra (2007-09), Chair of the Gene Golub SIAM Summer School committee (2010-13), SIAM Vice President-at-Large (2014-15), Temple University SIAM Student Chapter faculty advisor (2015-present), SIAM Fellow (2017), Chair of the SIAM Committee on Section Activities (2019-21), author of the SIAM book Metabolic Networks, Elementary Flux Modes, and Polyhedral Cones (2021), and member of the SIAM Journals Committee (2024-26).

To students and early career professionals, Dr. Szyld recommends attending conferences in their areas of interest: “Learn new things and see what is going on in the field,” he said. “Meet new people – your peers and your elders. New collaborations may arise, and sometimes friendships for life.”

Over time, his research interests have expanded to include nonnegative matrices, iterative methods for linear systems and eigenvalue problems, preconditioners, linear algebra view of domain decomposition methods, and parallel asynchronous iterative methods. “One extremely wonderful pleasure is when you prove a new result,” he shared. “And it is great when your numerical experiments illustrate the new results.”

Luz de Teresa

Dr. Luz de Teresa was born in Mexico City in 1965 and studied mathematics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), the largest and most prestigious university in Latin America. She earned her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid under the supervision of Enrique Zuazua (1995). That same year, she joined the Instituto de Matemáticas at UNAM, where she is now a full professor and holds Level III in the National System of Researchers.

Her research focuses on partial differential equations, control theory, long-time behavior, and stability. Building on techniques introduced in a seminal paper in which she obtained insensitizing controls for the heat equation, Dr. de Teresa began an active and fruitful collaboration with several colleagues that led to significant advances in the controllability of coupled parabolic equations. Her work extends beyond controllability issues for coupled heat equations, most recently exploring problems arising from game theory, particularly hierarchic control problems.

Dr. de Teresa has authored more than 50 research papers, which have been cited over 1,100 times. She is a SIAM member, serves on the SIAM Diversity Advisory Committee, and delivered a plenary talk at the Third Joint SIAM/CAIMS Annual Meetings in Montreal. Additionally, she is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the American Mathematical Society, as well as an Honor Member of the Royal Mathematical Society of Spain. She also serves on the Board of Governors of UNAM, among other leadership roles.

Resources

Below is a curated list of resources and networks tailored for Hispanic and Latin American mathematicians and early career professionals.