Professor Milena Stanislavova

Milena Stanislavova was a KU Professor of Mathematics whose research focused on dynamical systems and partial differential equations. NSF-funded since 2004, she taught undergraduate and graduate mathematics courses and received KU’s Don and Pat Morrison Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics.

Milena Stanislavova was a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Kansas. She served as Director of Graduate Studies in the Mathematics Department from 2012 to 2017 and was currently Chair of KU’s Economics Department.

Professor Stanislavova earned her M.S. in Mathematics from Sofia University in Bulgaria in 1993 and her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 2000. Before joining KU as an Assistant Professor in 2002, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts.

Her primary fields of study were dynamical systems and partial differential equations. More specifically, her research focused on the stability and long-term behavior of special solutions to nonlinear equations in mathematical physics. Her work examined solutions to a broad class of partial differential equations, which can be viewed as dynamical systems in infinite-dimensional spaces.

Hamiltonian partial differential equations support coherent structures such as solitary waves, periodic traveling waves, wave trains, and multi-pulses. These structures are important for modeling physical processes, and understanding their stability is essential for practical applications.

Professor Stanislavova published her research in journals such as Nonlinearity, Studies in Applied Mathematics, Physica D, Communications in Mathematical Physics, SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, Journal of Mathematical Physics, ZAMP, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A, and Journal of Evolution Equations, among others. Her research had been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation since 2004.

In addition to her research, Professor Stanislavova taught undergraduate courses in differential equations, calculus of variations, and complex analysis, as well as graduate courses in analysis, dynamical systems, and partial differential equations. She was also a faculty fellow in KU’s Honors Program, where she taught a freshman seminar for honors students. She received the Don and Pat Morrison Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics.

Professor Milena Stanislavova
Professor of Mathematics
Prior Chair, Department of Economics