Professor A S Fokas


A.S. Fokas has a BSc in Aeronautics from Imperial College (1975), a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology (1979) and an MD from the University of Miami, School of Medicine (1986).

In 1986, at the age of 33, he was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of Clarkson University, USA.

In 1996 he was appointed to a Chair in Applied Mathematics at Imperial College, UK.

In 2002 he was appointed to the newly inaugurated Chair in Nonlinear Mathematical Science at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Awards and Honours

In June 1975 he was awarded the Governor's Prize of Imperial College (best student), and in June 1983 he was awarded the Graham Research Prize of Clarkson University (best junior researcher).

In November 2000 he was awarded the Naylor Prize of the London Mathematical Society (the most prestigious prize in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in UK, the last five earlier recipients were Sir Roger Penrose, Sir Michael Berry, Sir John Ball, F.P. Kelly and S W Hawking).

In March 2004 he was awarded the Aristeion Prize in Sciences of the Academy of Athens (this is the most prestigious prize of the Academy given every four years to a single scholar of Greek origin chosen from science, engineering, or medicine).

In December 2004 he was elected a full member of the Academy of Athens (the Academy has about 45 members covering all areas including sciences, engineering, medicine, arts, letters, political and moral sciences; A.S. Fokas is the sixth mathematician elected in the Academy - the first was C. Caratheodory - and the first ever applied mathematician).

In January 2005 he was included in the New Year's list of honours of the President of the Hellenic Republic and he was presented with the decoration of the Commander of the Order of Phoenix (the list of honours included 14 individuals).

In June 2005 he was elected a Professorial Fellow of Clare Hall.

In June 2006 he was awarded (jointly with Professor D. Christodoulou) the Excellence Prize of the Bodossaki Foundation (this premier scientific prize is awarded every two years to scientists of Greek origin, as chosen by an international committee chaired by a Nobel Laureate), see the following articles in Greek Media: 16 June 2006, 14 June 2006, 11 June 2006 .

In 2009 he was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow on the basis “of stellar achievements and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment”.

In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the European Academy of Science, and was also appointed “Ambassador of Hellenism” by the Prefecture of Athens.

In the fall of 2012 he was an Onassis Senior Visiting Scholar at the University of Harvard.

He has been awarded honourary degrees from five Universities.

He is an honorary citizen of Oinousses and of Delphoi. He is a distinguished member of the Institute of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Greece, as well as an honorary Member of the Philological Society Parnassos.

ISI Web of Science includes A.S. Fokas in the list of the most highly cited researchers in the field of Mathematics (Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Probability and Statistics), see http://www.isihighlycited.com.

Editorial and Advisory Boards

He was the President of the Governing body of the National Library of Greece for the period 2005-2011. He has served on the International Advisory Boards of several Institutions including the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Imperial College, UK and the Centre for Nonlinear Mathematics and Applications, Loughborough University, UK.

He is the President of the scientific committee of the Laskaridis Foundation, as well as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Goulandris Natural History Museum.

He is an Associate Editor of the following three series: Progress in Physics and Mathematical Physics (Birkhauser), Modern Mechanics and Mathematics (CRC) and Publishing Program in Mathematics (de Gruyter).

He is the co-founder of the Journal of Nonlinear Science.

He is or has been a member of the Editorial Board of more than twenty scientific journals, including

He has been the co-organiser of several International conferences and workshops, including two workshops at the Isaac Newton Institute, as well as the 2nd International workshop “The Brain: Function, Imaging and Repair” at the Goulandris Natural History Museum/GAIA Centre (co-organised with F. Kafatos), Athens, October, 2009.

Books-Publications

He is the co-author of the following books:

  1. M J Ablowitz and A S Fokas, Introduction and Applications of Complex Variables, Cambridge University Press, second edition (2003).
  2. A S Fokas, A R Its, A A Kapaev and V Yu Novokshenov, Painlevé Transcendents: A Riemman-Hilbert Approach, AMS (2006).
  3. A S Fokas, A Unified Approach to Boundary Value Problems, CBMS-SIAM (2008).

He is the co-editor of the following books:

  1. A S Fokas and V E Zakharov, eds. Important Developments in Soliton Theory, Springer-Verlag (1993).
  2. A S Fokas, D J Kaup, A C Newell and V E Zakharov, eds. Nonlinear Processes in Physics, Springer-Verlag (1993).
  3. A S Fokas and I M Gelfand, eds. Algebraic Aspects of Integrable Equations, Birkhauser (1996).
  4. A S Fokas, A Grigorian, T Kibble and B Zegarlinsky, eds. Mathematical Physics 2000, Imperial College Press (2000).
  5. A S Fokas, A Grigorian, T Kibble and B Zegarlinsky, eds. XIII International Congress of Mathematical Physics, International Press (2002).
  6. A. Fokas, J. Halliwell, T. Kibble, B. Zegarlinski, eds. Highlights of Mathematical Physics, AMS (2002).

He is the author or co-author of almost 300 papers. He has published in different areas of science ranging from abstract areas such as differential geometry and random matrices, to applied areas such as models of chronic myelogenous leukaemia (with J.B. Keller) and protein folding (with I.M. Gel’fand). In particular, he has made seminal contributions in the field of integrable systems and has played a significant role in the solution of important mathematical problems arising in medical imaging.

Invited Talks

He has delivered almost 300 talks including the following: He has also given several public talks, including:

He has given several interviews to Greek media, including:

    Kappa of Kathimerini, 10 June 2012
    Kathimerini, 24 February 2008 ,
    Vima Science, 4 November 2007 ,
    A discussion with Prof F Kafatos in Kappa, 25 February 2007 ,
    Kathimerini, 28 May 2006,
    Kappa of Kathimerini, In the Brain of the leading Greek Scientists, 9 May 2006,
    Vimagazino,Presenting T Fokas, 12 March 2006,
    Kapodistriako Magazine of the University of Athens, 1 November 2005 ,
    Homme, Everything is Maths, May 2004,
    Eleftherotypia, 17 March 2004 ,
    Ta Nea, 28 June 2001.

A book review entitled "Castoriadis, Philosophy and Science" appeared in Kathimerini, 22 May 2005.

Current Main Areas of Interest

1. Boundary Value Problems

(i) Linear Evolution PDEs

  1. A.S. Fokas, A New Transform Method for Evolution PDEs, IMA J. Appl. Math. 67, 1-32 (2002).

  2. A.S. Fokas and P.F. Schultz, The long-time asymptotics of moving boundary problems using an Ehrenpreis-type representation and its Riemann-Hilbert nonlinearisation, Comm. Pure Appl. Maths 56, 517-548 (2002).

  3. P.A. Treharne and A.S. Fokas, Boundary Value Problems for Systems of Evolution Equations, IMA J. Appl. Math 69, (2004).

  4. A.S. Fokas and B. Pelloni, Boundary Value Problems for Boussinesq type Systems, Math. Phys. Anal. and Geom. 8, 59-96 (2005).

  5. A.S. Fokas and B. Pelloni, A Transform Method for Evolution PDEs on the Interval, IMA J. Appl. Maths 75, 564-587 (2005).

  6. P.A. Treharne and A.S. Fokas, Initial-boundary Value Problems for Linear PDEs with Variable Coefficients, Camb. Phil. Soc. 143, 221-242 (2007).

  7. N. Flyer and A.S. Fokas, A Hybrid Analytical Numerical Method for Solving Evolution Partial Differential Equations. I. The Half-Line, Proc. R. Soc. 464, 1823-1849 (2008).

  8. A.S. Fokas and B. Pelloni, Generalized Dirichlet-to-Neumann Map in Time-Dependent Domains, Stud. Appl. Math. 129, 51-90 (2012).

(ii) Linear Elliptic PDEs

  1. A.S. Fokas, Two Dimensional Linear PDE’s in a Convex Polygon, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 457, 371-393 (2001).

  2. D. ben-Avraham and A.S. Fokas, The Modified Helmholtz Equation in a Triangular Domain and an Application to Diffusion-limited Coalescence, Phys. Rev. E 64, 016114-6 (2001).

  3. A.S. Fokas and A.A. Kapaev, On a Transform Method for the Laplace Equation in a Polygon, IMA J. Appl. Math. 68, 355-408 (2003).

  4. D. Crowdy and A.S. Fokas, Explicit Integral Solutions for the Plane Elastostatic Semi-Strip, Proc. R. Soc. London A 460, 1285-1309 (2004).

  5. Y. Antipov and A.S. Fokas, A transform method for the modified Helmholtz equation on the semistrip, Math. Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 137 (2004).

  6. S. Fulton, A.S. Fokas and C. Xenophontos, An Analytical Method for Linear Elliptic PDEs and its Numerical Implementation, J. of Comput. and Appl. Maths 167, 465-483 (2004).

  7. G.Dassios and A.S. Fokas, The Basic Elliptic Equations in an Equilateral Triangle, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 461, 2721-2748 (2005).

  8. A.G. Sifalakis, A.S. Fokas, S. Fulton and Y.G. Saridakis, The Generalised Dirichlet to Neumann Map for Linear Elliptic PDEs and its Numerical Implementation, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 219, 9-34 (2008).

  9. G.Dassios and A.S. Fokas, Methods for Solving Elliptic PDEs in Spherical Coordinates, SIAM J. of Appl. Math. 68, 1080-1096 (2008).

  10. E.A. Spence and A.S. Fokas, A New Transform Method I: Domain Dependent Fundamental Solutions and Integral Representations, Proc. R. Soc. A. 466, 2259-2281 (2010).

  11. E.A. Spence and A.S. Fokas, A New Transform Method II: the Global Relation, and Boundary Value Problems in Polar Co-ordinates, Proc. R. Soc. A. 466, 2283-2307 (2010).

  12. A. Charalambopoulos, G. Dassios and A.S. Fokas, Laplace’s equation in the exterior of a convex polygon: the equilateral triangle, Quart. Appl. Math. 68 , 645-660 (2010).

  13. M. Dimakos and A.S. Fokas, The Poisson and the Biharmonic Equations in the Interior of a Convex Polygon, Stud. Appl. Math. (to appear)

  14. A.S. Fokas and K. Kalimeris, Eigenvalues for the Laplace Operator in the Interior of an Equilateral Triangle (submitted).

  15. A.C.L Ashton and A.S Fokas, Elliptic Boundary Value Problems in Convex Polygons with Low Regularity Boundary Data and Corner Singularities (submitted).

  16. A.S. Fokas and S.A. Smithman, The Fourier Transforms of the Chebysev and Legendre Polynomials (submitted).

(iii) Integrable Nolinear Evolution PDEs

  1. A.S. Fokas, Integrable Nonlinear Evolution Equations on the Half-Line, Comm. Math. Phys. 230, 1-39 (2002).

  2. A. Boutet de Monvel, A.S. Fokas and D. Shepelsky, The Analysis of the Global Relation for the Nonlinear Schr¨odinger Equation on the Half-Line, Lett. Math. Phys. 65, 199-212 (2003).

  3. A. Boutet de Monvel, A.S. Fokas and D. Shepelsky, The Modified KdV Equation on the Half-Line, J. of the Inst. of Math. Jussieu 3, 139-164 (2004).

  4. A.S. Fokas and S. Kamvissis, Zero Dispersion Limit for Integrable Equations on the Half-Line with Linearisable Data, Abstract and Applied Analysis 5, 361-370 (2004).

  5. A.S. Fokas, Linearizable Initial-Boundary Value Problems for the sine-Gordon Equation on the Half- Line, Nonlinearity 17, 1521-1534 (2004).

  6. A.S. Fokas and A.R. Its, The Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation on the Interval, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37, 6091-6114 (2004).

  7. A.S. Fokas, A.R. Its and L.Y. Sung, The Nonlinear Schroedinger Equation on the Half-Line, Nonlinearity 18, 1771-1822 (2005).

  8. A.S. Fokas, A Generalised Dirichlet to Neumann Map for Certain Nonlinear Evolution PDEs, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. LVIII, 639-670 (2005).

  9. A. Boutet de Monvel, A.S. Fokas and D. Shepelsky, Integrable Nonlinear Evolution Equations on the Interval, Comm. Math. Phys. 263, 133 (2006).

  10. P.A. Treharne, A.S. Fokas, The Generalized Dirichlet to Neumann map for the KdV Equation on the Half-Line, J. Nonlinear Science 18, 191-217 (2008).

  11. J. Lenells and A.S. Fokas, On a Novel Integrable Generalization of the nonlinear Schrodinger Equation, Nonlinearity 22, 11-27 (2008).

  12. J. Lenells and A.S. Fokas, An Integrable Generalization of the Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation on the Half-line and Solitons, Inverse Problems 25, 115006 (2009).

  13. A.S. Fokas and J. Lenells, Explicit Soliton Asymptotics for the Korteweg-de-Vries Equation on the Half-Line, Nonlinearity 23, 937-976 (2010).

  14. J. Lenells and A.S. Fokas, On a novel integrable generalization of the sine-Gordon equation, J. Math. Phys. 51, 023519 (2010).

  15. A.S. Fokas and J. Lenells, The Unified Method: I Non-Linearizable Problems on the Half-Line, J. Phys. A 45, 195201 (2012).

  16. J. Lenells and A.S. Fokas, The Unified Method: II NLS on the Half-Line with t-periodic Boundary Conditions, J. Phys. A 45, 195202 (2012).

  17. J. Lenells and A.S. Fokas, The Unified Method: III Non-Linearizable Problems on the Interval, J. Phys. A 45, 195203 (2012).

  18. S. De Lillo and A.S. Fokas, The Burgers Equation on a Fixed and on a Moving Boundary (submitted).

  19. A.S. Fokas and G. Hwang, An Example of an Explicit Construction of the Asymptotic Form of the Neumann Boundary Value for the NLS (submitted).

(iv) Integrable Nolinear Elliptic PDEs

  1. J. Lenells and A.S. Fokas, Boundary Value Problems for the Stationary Axisymmetric Einstein Equations: A Rotating Disk, Nonlinearity 24, 177-206 (2011).

  2. A.S. Fokas and B. Pelloni, The Dirichlet-to-Neumann Map for the Elliptic sine-Gordon Equation, Nonlinearity 25, 1011 (2012).

  3. A.S. Fokas, J. Lenells and B. Pelloni, Boundary Value Problems for the Elliptic sine-Gordon Equation in a Semi-Strip, J. Nonlinear Science (in press).

(v) Nonlinear Evolution PDEs in 2+1

  1. A.S. Fokas, The Davey-Stewartson I Equation on the Quarter Plane with Homogeneous Dirichlet Boundary Conditions, J. Math. Phys. 4, 3226-3244 (2003).

  2. A.S. Fokas, The Davey-Stewartson on the Half-Plane, Comm. Math. Phys. 289, 957-993 (2009).

  3. D. Mantzavinos and A.S. Fokas, The KPII Equation on the Half-Plane, Physica D 240, 477-511 (2011).

2. Medical Imaging and Inverse Problems

(i) PET and SPECT

  1. A.S. Fokas, A. Iserles and V. Marinakis, Reconstruction Algorithm for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography and its numerical implementation, J. R. Soc. Interface 3, 6, 45 (2006).

  2. G.A. Kastis, A. Samartzis and A.S. Fokas, Comparison between Filtered Back-Projection and Spline and Chebysev Reconstruction Techniques, European Association of Nuclear Medicine, Vienna, 2010.

  3. G.A. Kastis, A. Gaitanis, Y. Fernadez, G. Kontaxakis and A.S. Fokas, Evaluation of a Spline Reconstruction Technique: Comparison with FBP, MLEM and OSEM, IEEE, Nuclear Medicine Symposium – Medical Imaging Conference, USA, 2010.

  4. P.E. Barbano, A.S. Fokas and C.-B. Schonlieb, Alternating Regularisation in Measurement and Image Space for PET Reconstruction, 9th International Conference on Sampling Theory and Applications, Singapore, 2011.

(ii) MEG and EEG

  1. A.S. Fokas, Y. Kurylev and V. Marinakis, The Unique Determination of the Neuronal Current in the Brain via Magnetoencephalography, Inverse Problems 20, 1067-1082 (2004).

  2. G. Dassios, A.S. Fokas and F. Kariotou, On the Non-Uniqueness of the Inverse Magnetoencephalography Problem, Inverse Problems 21, L1-L5 (2005).

  3. G.Dassios, A.S. Fokas and D.Hadjiloizi, On the complementarity of Electroencephalography and Magnetoencephalography, Inverse Problems 23, 2541-2549 (2007).

  4. A.S. Fokas, Electro-Magneto-Encephalography for the three-Shell Model: Distributed Current in Arbitrary, Spherical and Ellipsoidal Geometries, J. R. Soc. Interface 6, 479-488 (2009).

  5. G. Dassios, A.S. Fokas, Electro-Magneto-Encephalography for the 3-Shell Model: Dipoles and Beyond for Spherical Geometry, Inverse Problems 25, 1-20 (2009).

  6. G.Dassios and A.S. Fokas, Electro-Magneto-Encephalography and Fundamental Solutions, Q. J. Appl. Math. 67, 771-780 (2009).

  7. G. Dassios and A.S. Fokas, Electro-Magneto-Encephalography for the three-Shell Model: A Single Dipole in Ellipsoidal Geometry, Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences 35, 1415-1422 (2012).

  8. A.S. Fokas, O. Hauk and V. Michel, Electro-Magneto-Encephalography for the three-Shell Model: Numerical Implementation for Distributed Current in Spherical Geometry, Inverse Problems 28, 035009 (2012).

  9. A.S. Fokas and Y. Kurylev, Electro-Magneto-Encephalography for the three-Shell Model: Minimal L2-norm in Spherical Geometry, Inverse Problems 28, 035010 (2012).

(iii) Gravitometry

  1. V. Michel and A.S. Fokas, A Unified Approach to Various Techniques for the Non-Uniqueness of the Inverse Gravimetric Problem and Wavelet Based Methods, Inverse Problems 24, 1-23 (2008).

3. Asymptotics of the Riemann and Related Functions

  1. A.S. Fokas and M.L. Glasser, The Laplace Equation in the Exterior of the Hankel Contour and Novel Identities for the Hypergeometric Functions, arXiv:1206.4544.

  2. A.S. Fokas and J. Lenells, On the asymptotics of the Riemann zeta function to all orders, arXiv:1201.2633.

Additional Areas of Interest

1. Integrable Nonlinear Multidemnsinal PDEs

  1. A.S. Fokas, D.E. Pelinovski and C. Sulem, Interaction of Lumps with a Line Soliton for the DSII Equation, Physica D 152-153, 189-198 (2001).

  2. A.S. Fokas and A.K. Pogrebkov, Inverse Scattering Transform for the KPI Equation on the Background of a one-Line Soliton, Nonlinearity 16, 771-783 (2003).

  3. M. McConnell, A.S. Fokas and B. Pelloni, Localised Coherent Structures of the DSI and DSII Equations - A Numerical Study, Maths and Computers in Simulation 69, 424-438 (2005).

  4. A. S. Fokas, Integrable Nonlinear Evolution PDEs in 4+2 and 3+1 Dimensions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 190201 (2006)

  5. A.S. Fokas, Nonlinear Fourier Transforms, Integrability and Nonlocality in Multidimensions, Nonlinearity 20, 2093-2113 (2007).

  6. A. S. Fokas, Soliton Multidimensional Equations and Integrable Evolutions Preserving Laplace's Equation, Phys. Lett. A 372, 1277-1279 (2008).

  7. A.S. Fokas, The D-Bar Method, Inversion of Certain Integrals and Integrability in 4 + 2 and 3 + 1 Dimensions, J. Phys. A 41, 1-16 (2008).

  8. A.S. Fokas, The Kadomtsev-Petviashvili Equation Revisited and Integrability in 4+2 and 3+1, Stud. Appl. Math. 122, 347-359 (2009).

  9. M. Dimakos and A.S. Fokas, Linearizable Nonlinear PDEs in Multidimensions, J. Math. Phys. (to appear).

  10. M. Dimakos and A.S. Fokas, Davey-Stewartson Type Equations in 4+2 and 3+1 Possessing Soliton Solutions (submitted).

2. Fluid Mechanics

  1. A.S. Fokas and D.T. Papageorgiou, Absolute and Convective Instability for Evolution PDEs on the Half-Line, Stud. Appl. Math. 114, 95-114 (2005).

  2. A.S. Fokas and J.T. Stuart, The Time Periodic Solution of the Burgers Equation on the Half-Line and an Application to Steady Streaming, J. of Nonlinear Math. Phys. 12, 302-314 (2005).

  3. M.J. Ablowitz, A.S. Fokas and Z.H. Musslimani, On a New Nonlocal Formulation of Water Waves, J. Fluid Mechanics 562, 313-344 (2006).

  4. J.L. Bona and A.S. Fokas, Initial-Boundary-Value Problems for Linear and Integrable Nonlinear Dispersive PDEs, Nonlinearity 21, 195-203 (2008).

  5. A.C.L Ashton and A.S Fokas, A Non-Local Formulation for Rotational Water Waves, J. Fluid. Mechanics 689, 129-148 (2011).

  6. A.S. Fokas and A. Nachbin, Water Waves over a Variable Bottom: A Non-Local Formulation and Conformal Mapping, J. Fluid. Mechanics 695, 288-309 (2012).

3. Complex Analysis and Generalisations

  1. A.S. Fokas and D.A. Pinotsis, The Dbar Formalism for Certain Linear Non-Homogeneous Elliptic PDEs in Two Dimensions, Eur. J. Appl. Math. 17, 323-346 (2006).

  2. A.S. Fokas and D.A. Pinotsis, Quaternions, Evaluation of Integrals and Boundary Value Problems, Comp. Meth. Funct. Theory 7, 443-476 (2007).

  3. D.G. Crowdy and A.S. Fokas, Conformal Mappings to Doubly Connected Polycircular Arc Domains, Proc. R. Soc. A 463, 1885-1907 (2007)

  4. D.G. Crowdy, A.S. Fokas and C.C. Green, Conformal Mappings to Multiply Connected Polycircular Arc Domains, Comp. Meth. Funct. Theory 11, 685-706 (2011).

4. Protein Folding

  1. A.S. Fokas, I.M. Gelfand and A.E. Kister, Prediction of the Structural Motifs of Sandwich Proteins, PNAS 101, 16780-16783 (2004).

  2. A.S. Fokas, T.S. Papatheodorou, A.E. Kister and I.M. Gelfand, A Geometric Construction Determines Permissible Strand Arrangements of Sandwich Proteins, PNAS 102, 15851-15853 (2005).

  3. A.E. Kister, A.S. Fokas, T.S. Papatheodorou, I.M. Gelfand, Strict Rules Determine the Arrangement of Strands in Sandwich Proteins, PNAS 103, 4107-4110 (2006).

  4. T.S. Papatheodorou and A.S. Fokas, Systematic Construction and Prediction of the Arrangement of the Strands of Sandwich Proteins, J. R. Soc. Interface 6, 63-73 (2008).