University of Texas at Austin
Ivo & Renata Babuška

Ivo & Renata Babuška Scholarship in Computational Science and Engineering

The Ivo & Renata Babuška Scholarship was inaugurated in 2022. This $1,000 scholarship is awarded annually to an undergraduate senior working on research with Oden Institute faculty at the University of Texas at Austin.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the 2024-2025 award, the student must:

  • be a currently enrolled undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin;
  • be entering their senior year in Fall 2024 (graduating no earlier than December 2024);
  • be working on undergraduate research with faculty at the Oden Institute; and
  • have a minimum GPA of 3.0.

Student Application Instructions

— Application deadline: February 29, 2024 —

Submit the following documents via the secure Oden Institute Uploader by February 29, 2024. Note: Please put "Babuška Scholarship" as the file description for each document uploaded.

  • 1-2 page statement describing your interest in Computational Science and Engineering (e.g. coursework, research, internships, and/or class projects.) Include your name, UT EID and expected graduation date at the top of your statement.
  • Scanned copy of your official transcript. If you cannot obtain and scan your official transcript, we will access it using your UT EID.
  • One letter of recommendation from an Oden Institute faculty member. Letter must be uploaded by the faculty member directly — please provide them with the link to the Oden Institute Uploader.

Faculty Nomination Instructions

Oden Institute Faculty are invited to submit letters of recommendation via the secure Oden Institute Uploader by February 29, 2024. Your letter should detail how the student has demonstrated an interest in Computational Science & Engineering (e.g. coursework, research, internships, and/or class projects.) Please put "Babuška Scholarship" as the file description for each document uploaded.

About Ivo and Renata Babuška

Dr. Babuška was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1926, and earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the Technical University of Prague and his D.Sc. in mathematics from the Czechoslovakia Academy of Sciences. He met his wife, Renata, at Charles University in 1953, where she earned a degree in mathematical statistics. They married in 1957 and immigrated with their two children to College Park, Maryland in 1968. Dr. Babuška was hired as a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park in the mathematics department, and Renata worked as a data and computing management consultant for several government agencies in Washington, D.C. In 1994, the couple moved to Austin, Texas, where Dr. Babuška began his tenure at the Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics, which is now the Oden Institute.

Dr. Babuška made pioneering contributions in the fields of mathematics, applied mathematics, numerical methods, finite element methods, and computational mechanics. He is noted for his studies of the finite element method (FEM) and the Babuška-Lax-Milgram theorem in partial differential equations. One celebrated result of FEM is the Babuška-Brezzi condition, which provides sufficient conditions for a stable mixed formulation for solutions related to various physical and engineering problems. He published more than 350 papers, numerous books, and has over 65,000 citations.

Renata Babuška passed away in 2020 and Dr. Babuška passed away in 2023.