Peter March, dean, natural and mathematical sciences, and professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been asked to serve a four-year term as chair of the United States National Committee for Mathematics (USNC/M), a committee under the aegis of the Board on International Scientific Organizations of the National Academies of Science. USNC/M represents the United States in the International Mathematical Union (IMU) and promotes the advancement of the mathematical sciences.

“It’s an honor to help represent the American mathematical sciences community in the International Mathematical Union; and especially to lead the U.S. national delegation at the upcoming International Congress of Mathematicians this August in Seoul, South Korea,” March said.

The International Congress is held once every four years and is the venue for awarding the Fields Medal, often described as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics. (There is no Nobel Prize category for mathematics.)

March, who has been dean of natural and mathematical sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences since 2010, understands the key issues that confront the natural, mathematical and physical sciences and has been their articulate and passionate champion, providing leadership on the local and the national level.

From 2006 to 2010, he served as the director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Prior to that appointment, March served as chair of Ohio State’s Department of Mathematics (1998-2006) and associate director of Ohio State’s NSF-funded Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI) from 2003-2005.

In coordination with the International Mathematical Union and with consensus gained from the U.S. mathematical sciences community, the United States National Committee for Mathematics has defined the following focal areas for serving the interests of the United States and the international communities:

• Supporting U.S. participation in IMU;
• Encouraging other international mathematical activities considered likely to contribute to the development of the mathematical sciences in any of its aspects—pure, applied, or educational;
• Advocating, in the international mathematical sciences community, for such common concerns as gender and ethnic equality, human rights, and the free circulation of scientists;
• Promoting mathematical sciences in developing countries and encouraging mathematical sciences as a key to development;
• Creating opportunities for U.S. mathematical scientists to participate in international sciences and education initiatives;
• Supporting a systematic presence of mathematical sciences in the "information society."