glaciers

Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education

Biography

Photo of Rodolfo Torres, Distinguished Professor

Rodolfo Torres 
Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development

Distinguished Professor
Department of Mathematics
University of California - Riverside

Riverside, CA  92521
rodolfo.h.torres@ucr.edu

Committee term end date: December 31, 2026


Rodolfo H. Torres is a Distinguished Professor for Mathematics and Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). Before arriving to UCR in 2019, he was University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, at the University of Kansas (KU) where he served for more than six years in the Office of Research, first as Associate Vice Chancellor and then as Interim Vice Chancellor for Research and President of the Kansas University Center for Research Inc. (KUCR). He is also a former Faculty Senate President at KU. At the national level, he is currently a member of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee (MPSAC) of the National Sciences Foundation (NSF) and of the Executive Committee of the Council on Research (COR) of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). Torres did his undergraduate studies at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, and held postdoctoral positions at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, before moving to KU. He regularly mentors graduate and undergraduate students and has received numerous teaching awards. Torres was elected to the inaugural class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and in 2017 he was featured in the Lathisms Calendar of Latinxs and Hispanics in Mathematical Sciences and the AMS. Torres’ research interests include Fourier analysis and its applications in partial differential equations, signal analysis, and biology, and applications of machine learning to research administration data. He specializes in the study of singular integrals, function spaces, and decomposition techniques and is most recognized for his work with various collaborators on several foundational aspects of the multilinear Calder´on-Zygmund theory. Torres has also collaborated with biologists to explain structural coloration phenomena in the tissues of animals, a work that received considerable scientific media attention including articles in The New York Times, Science Magazine, and Discovery Channel on-line. Torres’ research has been supported by grants from the NSF, and he has given numerous lectures and taught short courses around the world. He was a co-founder of the Prairie Analysis Seminar, an annual conference funded by NSF that has garnered recognition for the quality and diversity of its speakers and the opportunity it provides to young mathematicians to showcase their work. He is currently in the editorial board of two research journals in mathematics and often reviews and referees’ manuscripts for numerous periodicals, as well as research proposals for diverse research agencies.