Mathematicians Working to Save Lives from Hurricane Michael

Behind the teams of emergency responders preparing the public for the expected catastrophic impact of Hurricane Michael is a group of American mathematicians working to save lives with what it calls the best defense – numbers.

The team – a group of researchers at several institutions across the U.S., including Clint Dawson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and Fellow of Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) – has developed a unique automated computer model to provide the public with up-to-date information about the potential impact of Hurricane Michael, the results of which can be found in real-time at https://cera.coastalrisk.live/.

Last month, Dawson – who has been working with the team to perfect this model for the last 20 years – presented his key learnings to fellow number crunchers at the SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Planet Earth. His extensive career most recently saw Dawson and his team’s mathematical modeling helping emergency response teams during Texas’s Hurricane Harvey and the Carolinas’ Hurricane Florence.

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of more than 14,500 individual, academic and corporate members from 85 countries. SIAM helps build cooperation between mathematics and the worlds of science and technology to solve real-world problems through publications, conferences, and communities like chapters, sections and activity groups. Learn more at siam.org.