Ren Wins Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award

Kui Ren, Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, was one of two recipients who received a 2022 Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award (DFTA) from the Columbia Engineering Alumni Association (CEAA).

The award, created by the Alumni Association, is conferred annually to honor faculty members of The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science for excellence in teaching. Professor Ren was nominated by several of his students and selected by the Columbia Engineering alumni who serve on the DFTA committee. 

Professor Ren received the award during the Columbia Engineering Class Day ceremony on May 16, 2022.

Professor Ren received his BS from Nanjing University in China and obtained his PhD from the Applied Mathematics program in the APAM Department at Columbia University in May 2006. Following his PhD, he moved to the University of Chicago in 2007 where he worked as the L. E. Dickson instructor. In Fall, 2008, Ren joined the University of Texas at Austin as an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and the Institute for Computational Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics (ICES) and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014. He returned to Columbia University in 2018 and joined the faculty in the APAM Department at Columbia Engineering as a full professor.

Kui Ren's research involves several aspects of applied and computational mathematics. His recent work include theoretical and numerical analysis of inverse problems related to partial differential equations with applications in biomedical imaging, mathematical modeling and computation of the propagation of high frequency acoustic/electromagnetic waves in random media, numerical and mathematical studies of random graphs and networks, as well as numerical algorithms for kinetic modeling of electrostatics and charge transport in semiconductor devices.

Professor Ren follows in the footsteps of Professor Marc Spiegelman, APAM Chair, who received the same award in 2020.