Professor Myron B. Allen,
Provost

Ph.D., Princeton University, 1983
M.A., Princeton University, 1978
A.B., Dartmouth College, 1976

Myron B. Allen, Professor of Mathematics, has served as UW’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs since 2005.  In this role, he is the university's chief academic officer, responsible for the university's academic budget, academic planning, curriculum, outreach mission, and academic personnel decisions, including hiring, reappointment, tenure, and promotion.

As an administrator in the Office of Academic Affairs, he has led or contributed to a wide range of institution-level initiatives, including the following:

• Key contributor or lead writer in 3 strategic plans (1999, 2004, 2009) and lead developer of the plan to be submitted to the UW Board of Trustees in 2014
• Design and implementation of a system of faculty position management to support the university’s strategic plan
• Successful programs to increase the faculty size by over 20 percent
• Development and implementation of a $10 million/year interdisciplinary School of Energy Resources
• Participation in UW’s leadership team in helping to establish the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputer Center
• Permanent funding for visiting chairs in African-American Studies, American Indian Studies, and Global Studies
• Permanent funding for visiting eminent and fine artists in residence
• Leadership development programs for new and future academic leaders
• Establishment of a $250,000/year diversity funding pool to facilitate the hiring of people of color and women in fields where they are underrepresented
• Coordinated a successful proposal to increase funding for UW’s Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute, from $200,000/year to $3 million/year
• Promotion of faculty-led design and implementation of 7 new graduate degree programs, including 4 cross-college Ph.D. programs in strategic academic areas

As a mathematician, Allen’s interests include numerical analysis, mathematical modeling, and fluid mechanics in porous media. Applications of these areas include the analysis of fluid flows in oil and gas reservoirs, groundwater aquifers, and carbon dioxide sequestration projects.  Flows of this type obey a remarkable variety of partial differential equations, most of which require numerical solution on high-performance computers.  He has published over 60 scientific articles and 4 books, including:

M.B. Allen and E.L. Isaacson, Numerical Analysis for Applied Science, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1998.

M.B. Allen, I. Herrera, and G.F. Pinder, Numerical Modeling in Science and Engineering (ISBN 0471806358).  John Wiley & Sons, Inc., has reverted the copyright to the authors.  For free downloadable .pdf files, click here.

Other Activities

• Membership in American Council of Education (ACE) Leadership Commission
• Facilitator in ACE Institutes for New Chief Academic Officers
• Supervision of 12 M.S students and 6 Ph.D. students to completion
• Service as Department Head in Mathematics, 1992 - 1998
• George Duke Humphrey Award (UW's highest faculty award)
• Service on two international editorial boards
• Teaching in a mathematics course each fall semester (subject varies)
• Boards of directors:  Western Research Institute, American Red Cross of Wyoming
• Volunteer ski patroller (National Appointment 10216, instructor in outdoor emergency care, level-2 avalanche, and mountain travel and rescue)

With Adele on Washington's Ptarmigan Traverse