Science of DMS

Advances in science and engineering, driven in part by increasingly sophisticated and readily available computing environments, have lifted the mathematical sciences to the forefront of science and engineering, reshaping modern discovery through quantitative predictions, modeling, visualization, computational algorithms, and optimization methods. Science and engineering are becoming more mathematical and statistical, not only in the physical, engineering and informational sciences, but also the biological, geophysical, environmental, social, behavioral, and economic sciences.

The Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) has a crucial role in the support of academic research in the mathematical sciences, providing over 60% of all federal academic research support. NSF-supported research involves a broader range of infrastructure, fundamental research, and multidisciplinary research topics than that sponsored by other federal agencies that support academic mathematical sciences research. Research supported includes areas such as analysis, geometry, topology, foundations, algebra, number theory, combinatorics, applied mathematics, statistics, probability, biomathematics, and computational mathematics. Awards in these areas support a variety of research projects, multidisciplinary projects, and Focused Research Groups, with some grants including funding for graduate and postdoctoral students as well as for workshops, computing equipment and other research needs.

Also, the DMS provides infrastructure support for the mathematical sciences, including research institutes; postdoctoral research fellowships; graduate educational reform; career broadening experiences for researchers; opportunities that increase participation in the nation's research personnel base; research conferences and workshops; shared scientific computing research equipment; and, undergraduate activities such as research experiences for undergraduates.