The Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University has selected Yuesheng Xu, an associate professor of mathematics at North Dakota State University, as the new Eberly Family Professor of Mathematics. This is one of several distinguished professorships funded by the Eberly family of Uniontown, Pa.
A specialist in applied mathematics, Dr. Xu was named an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow by the German government in 1996 and received North Dakota State University’s Best Researcher Award for Science and Mathematics in 1998. A Chinese immigrant, he earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from Zhongshan University in China and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Old Dominion University.
“Dr. Xu brings a high level of expertise in several areas of applied math and a growing international reputation to our Department of Mathematics,”said Dean M. Duane Nellis.
His research has been supported by numerous government agencies, including a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, and his work has been published in nearly 50 academic journals.
His primary areas of focus are on approximation theory, boundary integral equations (an important tool for solving engineering problems) and wavelet analysis and its applications to image processing. One of his major accomplishments has been in developing fast wavelet methods for solving boundary integral equations.
Xu enjoys teaching a wide variety of math courses and says his teaching style involves simplicity and intuition. When presenting a new concept, he uses examples to illustrate the theory and leads students step-by-step to discover the abstract formulation.
“One of the biggest challenges is to remove a studentsfear,”Xu said.”I believe the best way to learn a new mathematical concept is not to get it from reading a book, but to discover it from thinking.”
Future goals include developing grant proposals, initiating a joint Ph.D. program with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and recruiting more Chinese high school students to WVU .
“Dr. Xu falls into the rising-star category,”said Sherman Riemenschneider, professor and mathematics chair.”He will provide leadership in interdisciplinary research, and I expect he will have an additional positive impact on our new degree program in industrial mathematics and statistics.”