Applied Mathematics as an Interdisciplinary Subject

It is always a bit difficult to predict the future and it is particularly difficult to predict the future of applied mathematics because it is hard to even define what is meant by applied mathematics. It is even more difficult to attempt to lay out a future that will fit all departments and all of the practitioners of the art of applied mathematics. At any meeting of applied mathematicians or engineers we see many different aspects of applied mathematics and many ways of practicing the art. I will simply try to explain what we are doing at Texas Tech and present this approach as one possibility for the future of applied mathematics. I don’t believe that everything that we are doing at TTU will fit every other group in the country, but some of what we are doing could serve as a paradigm for any applied mathematics department in the United States.