At the recent Wolfram Technology Conference 2011, Stephen Wolfram presented the first annual Wolfram Innovator Awards to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to their fields through the innovative use of Wolfram technologies.

This year’s winners were nominated by Wolfram employees and selected by a panel of Wolfram technology experts. The awards recognize the achievements of these individuals in education, finance, engineering, and other fields:

Steve Bush
Principal Engineer, Procter & Gamble
Steve Bush develops electromechanical consumer products at P&G. He has built sophisticated tools for computer-aided design and product optimization and set up an efficient workflow from idea to prototype using Mathematica.

Watch Steve Bush talk about optimizing face gear surfaces »

Seth Chandler
Director, University of Houston Law Center
Seth Chandler studies insurance policy, patent law, and other facets of the U.S. legal system with Mathematica. He is a prolific contributor to the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, including Demonstrations that examine the allocation of losses from hurricanes, which he used in testimony before the Texas legislature.

Watch Seth Chandler talk about Mathematica‘s role in hurricane insurance research »

View the interactive CDF transcript of Chandler’s testimony before the Texas Legislature »

Ronald Kurnik
Principal Systems Engineer II, Roche Molecular Systems
Ronald Kurnik uses Mathematica for rapid prototyping of algorithms for signal and image processing and for quantitative chemical reaction modeling. His work has led to Roche being granted several patents.

Diego Oviedo-Salcedo
Professor of Civil Engineering, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana Bucaramanga
Although a relative newcomer to Mathematica, Diego Oviedo-Salcedo demonstrated innovative use of Wolfram technologies in the creation of homework, solutions, and presentations for his engineering classes and used Mathematica extensively for his PhD research. He is the founder of a Mathematica training facility in Bucaramanga, Colombia.

Eric Schulz
Professor, Walla Walla Community College;
Pearson Education
Pearson Education represented by Caroline Celano
Sponsoring Editor, Calculus & Advanced Mathematics, Pearson
Eric Schulz, a mathematics instructor at Walla Walla Community College, joined authors William Briggs, Lyle Cochran, and Bernard Gillett to bring the classic calculus book into the twenty-first century. It is now an ebook published by Pearson Education that combines narrative material, examples, and exercises together with 650 interactive figures in an engaging and rigorous presentation.

Watch Eric Schulz talk about developing interactive textbooks with CDF »

View the interactive CDF from Briggs, Cochran, Gillett, and Schulz on interacting with calculus »

Dana Scott
Hillman University Professor of Computer Science, Philosophy, and Mathematical Logic (Emeritus), Carnegie Mellon University
Dana Scott was an early user of Wolfram technologies in teaching, including developing a Mathematica-based course in projective geometry. Student of Alonzo Church (inventor of lambda calculus), Dana Scott coinvented nondeterministic finite automata (NDFA), is the founder of domain theory, and won the 1976 ACM Turing Award.

Michael Ulrey
Engineer, Boeing
As part of the Advanced Air Traffic Management team at Boeing, Michael Ulrey develops quantitative models to study the safety of operations and make compelling safety cases to regulators. He has created 3D models with Mathematica to analyze flight paths and simulate various situations.

Watch Michael Ulrey talk about flight operational safety analysis »

Stan Wagon
Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Macalester College
Stan Wagon uses Mathematica for both teaching and research. His research interests include computational dynamics, number theory, and mathematical logic. Some of his work has resulted in functionality incorporated into Mathematica. He also created a square-wheeled bicycle and a track to ride it on, which landed him a spot in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, and competes in the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Contest with snow sculptures based on mathematical objects.

View Stan Wagon’s Mathematica Demonstrations »

Debra Woods
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Debra Woods has pioneered the use of Mathematica for distance learning. She develops and teaches courses for NetMath, an online math program at the University of Illinois. The courses use Mathematica-based modules that combine textbooks with interactive examples and illustrations to help students focus on mathematical concepts.

Watch Debra Woods talk about exploring mathematics »

Philip Zecher
Consultant (former partner), EQA Partners
Philip Zecher brought sophisticated computational analysis into the already sophisticated world of financial analysis. As the Chief Risk Officer at EQA Partners, Philip Zecher designed, developed, and implemented a front-to-back trading system, from data acquisition to reporting, using Wolfram technologies. The system manages the flow of data to reduce data errors, time, and costs.

Watch Philip Zecher talk about developing an enterprise-wide trading platform »

Congratulations to all the winners!