Hinke Osinga (2006-2007):
I vividly remember when John Guckenheimer asked me to help set up DSWeb Magazine; advise from my Head of Department at the time was that this would cost me my career. Well, it didn’t. Being involved in DSWeb, since its inception in 2001 until 2008 not only brought me increased visibility, I found a maths family that has supported me all the way. I am most proud of starting the `In the Spotlight’ interviews. There are many with prominent dynamical systems people who have since passed away. These are not only great historical records, but I also remember how chuffed the interviewees were to be interviewed for DSWeb. Particular highlights are Yingfei Yi’s interview with Jack Hale (The-Magazine/All-Issues/an-interview-with-jack-k-hale) in the 2004 January issue, and Bernd Krauskopf’s interview with Floris Takens (The-Magazine/All-Issues/knight-floris-takens) in the 2006 January issue. What makes DSWeb and DSWeb Magazine special is that it is open access for everyone to read. DSWeb boasted memberships well over double the SIAG/DS membership, but even more people read DSWeb Magazine. I continue to post links to such stories on course websites, so my students can get a personal impression; particularly my interviews with Herb Keller (April 2005, The-Magazine/All-Issues/interview-with-herbert-b-keller) and Sebius Doedel (April 2007, The-Magazine/All-Issues/cultural-and-culinary-delights-with-auto) are popular. Every story brings back treasured memories. For the `Resident Alien’ column, I interviewed Martin Wechselberger just after he moved from the US to Australia (The-Magazine/All-Issues/making-a-career-in-sydney-australia). I dare claim that most mathematicians in the northern hemisphere agreed with me that this was an unusual move; well, I can tell you that our colleagues from the southern hemisphere had a very good laugh when seeing the story and pictures.
Evelyn Sander (2008-2009):
DSWeb Magazine has been really important to a lot of people’s careers, serving as a launching pad towards bigger leadership rules. Certainly, this is true of my career — it is the reason I started volunteering at SIAM at the first place. I don’t think I would have ever been AE or EIC of SIADS, Section editor at Research Spotlights at SIREV, or on the SIAM Council without first being part of DSWeb. I was a junior faculty member, and it gave me an opportunity to meet many of the big shots in the field. I got to solicit all kinds of fun articles, such as Don Saari’s article about Social Dynamics, and an article on “The Dynamics of Toys” by Bard Ermentrout and John G. Milton, William R. Kenan Jr.’s article — that article even included some experimental results for the drinking duck and stick balancing. Since DSWeb is less formal than a regular journal, I had freedom to develop and test our new ideas, such as a DSWeb Tutorials Competition, and a monthly dynamical visualization feature. The magazine also serves to keep the sense community within the DS SIAG — a place I consider as my academic home.
Jens Rademacher (2010-2011):
DSWeb has been a wonderful place for exchange of ideas and information with the community, to get to know people, and to shape my academic home. Before taking over as EIC, I was involved in arranging material into the Media Gallery, which was continued by Mathieu Desroches. Kresimir Josic came in as managing editor, Lennaert van Veen as portal editor, and both wrote great contributions, in particular for the newly formed Editorials. Anne Catlla and Eric Shea-Brown joined as editors of the Tutorials section and later continued the Tutorial contests. Revisiting the material reminds me of the great fun we had, and highlights that topics from back then reappear with a new twist, e.g. this from January 2011 about AI. There were also sad moments. Several esteemed colleagues passed away between late 2009 and 2011 including Jack Hale, Jaroslav Stark, Floris Takens, Vladimir I. Arnol’d, Jerrold E. Marsden, Klaus Kirchgässner, and L.P. Shilnikov, and commemorations on DSWeb and at SIAM-DS in Snowbird were arranged.
Peter van Heijster (2012-2013):
Earlier this month, I received the sad news that the DSWeb magazine is disappearing in its current form as the DNN platform has become unsustainable. I vividly remember my time at DSWeb, during which, among other things, we prepared for the transition to the current, apparently now unsustainable, platform. The previous system from 2003 was Shellshock hacked by the end of 2014 and hence unsustainable -- do I see a natural law here for the lifetime of a platform? In my role as (portal) editor in chief of DSWeb, I was partly responsible for the transition, and we had numerous meetings at US- and Europe-friendly timeslots -- which was unfortunate for me as I was situated in Australia. I guess you could say that I achieved my mission set at the start of my tenure of making DSWeb more international as at least three continents were involved in these meetings. In short, my time at DSWeb was amazing and very valuable for my career as it gave me a first glance at the 'academic service'-part of academia.
Elizabeth Cherry (2014-2015):
Like so many others, I found DSWeb to be a wonderful, low-stakes entry into the SIAM community. I still remember when Lennaert van Veen asked if I wanted to become involved with DSWeb Magazine. At that time, I was a junior faculty member, so it seemed like a great opportunity for where I was in my career; I could even draw on some skills from serving on my high-school and college newspapers (yes, back when newspapers existed). I’ve always been a bit shy, and the structure of a shared goal like working on the Magazine was exactly the secret ingredient that got me out of my shell to interact with others. Before I knew it, I was part of a DSWeb family with great people like Peter, Danny, Korana, and the glue behind it all, James Haines at SIAM. Somehow, work on the magazine turned into running for SIAG secretary and becoming EIC, followed up by the DSWeb Portal EIC, and eventually becoming a SIAG Advisory Board member, co-chairing SIAM conferences, and serving on the Council. I am very confident none of that would have happened without DSWeb; my involvement there helped me grow in ways that, as a junior faculty member long ago, I had no idea were even possible. For me and many others, being part of DSWeb has been an important part not only of learning new mathematics and science, but also of personal and professional growth. I hope that the scientific aspects of DSWeb will find new homes accessible to all, but even more, I hope that there will be another pathway to recruit volunteers to the SIAG and to SIAM in general. DSWeb for so many of us became a family that often led to the larger extended family of the full SIAM community. For me personally, DSWeb has enriched my life immensely.
Mason Porter (2016-2017):
I view my time as co-Editor-in-Chief of DSWeb through the larger lens of having now held all four elected positions for the dynamical systems activity group. One of my key goals --- and I think the most lasting one --- was to increase the activity group's social-media presence. I started our activity group's Twitter (now X) account on 1 January 2016 and have been running it ever since. Two DSWeb articles during my EiC tenure particularly stand out to me. One of them was an introduction to topological data analysis that I solicited from Chad Topaz (The-Magazine/Article/topological-data-analysis). This article remains one of the most popular articles that DSWeb has published. The other article that stands out is an interview that I
conducted with Nancy Kopell (The-Magazine/Article/interview-with-nancy-kopell), who had won the 2013 Moser Lecture prize.
I am pleased that much DSWeb material has continued to be read, enjoyed, and used for years after publication. When DSWeb changed its Web hosting and it took some time for all of its archived articles to be posted again, I received an e-mail from somebody who needed his article available again because it was still in active use and wasn't yet back up.
Anna Ghazaryan (2018-2019):
For two years, my professional life was shaped by my role as editor of DSWeb. At conferences, I found myself choosing which talks to attend based on their potential to become DSWeb stories. I remember the thrill of discovering something that was both intellectually engaging and visually captivating. When I spoke with people about their research projects, I often wondered whether their PhD students might be good candidates for the Student Spotlight.
I genuinely enjoyed approaching people on behalf of DSWeb to invite them to contribute to the magazine. It was an oddly exhilarating feeling to represent something larger than myself—to speak, write, and act not just as an individual, but as the voice of the magazine. That perspective gave me a new sense of purpose: to grow the magazine’s reach and readership. I felt real joy each time someone agreed to write for us.
The community of contributors and regular helpers was small but tightly knit. Working with Korana Burke (co-Editor-in-Chief), Danny Abrams, and Elizabeth Cherry was a real pleasure—they were friendly, reliable, and fun to collaborate with. The only challenge was our different time zones, which meant that many of my evenings turned into early mornings while preparing new issues for release. I lost count of how many times I silently thanked the universe for James Haines’ existence. I still remember my surprise when at some point I realized that he wasn’t a volunteer like the rest of us, but a SIAM employee—it only deepened my appreciation for everything he did.
It was a deeply rewarding two-year journey, and I’m truly grateful to have had that experience in my professional life.
Korana Burke (2018-2021):
I have been involved in various roles with DSWeb for more than a decade. I thank Lennaert van Veen for pulling me into DSWeb and then later on to Peter van Heijster, Elizabeth Cherry, Danny Abrams, Mason Porter, Anna Ghazaryan, Robert Marangell, Zachary Kilpatrick, and Casey Diekman for many years of great collaborative work. And a huge thank you to James Haines, without whom many articles and issues would not have happened. The few weeks leading up to the next issue were perpetually hectic and somehow we always worked to the last minute, but the final product never failed to make me feel proud of the DS community. It was pure pleasure to solicit and then help edit research, feature, and general interest articles and conference reports. Even when the occasion was somber and we were soliciting In Memoriam articles, I knew we were going to get an article that would reflect the best of the DS community. My proudest contribution was the addition of Student Features, which over the years put a spotlight on at the time rising, and now well-established and respected, members of the DS community. It was always a thrill to wait for their contributions to come in. Snowbird conference is the place to reconnect with everyone in person and DSWeb helped to ease the two-year wait. I also frequently use DSWeb as an inspiration for undergraduates interested in applied math research because the platform allows for easy access to a wide variety of interesting and exciting articles. I am sad to see DSWeb go, but I am hopeful that the next chapter will continue to foster all the best things that came out of the past two decades.
Robert Marangell (2020-2021):
Being editor-in-chief of DSWeb was a genuinely rewarding experience. I still remember the thrill of getting our first edition online, the rush of everything coming together, the teamwork, and then suddenly seeing it all go live. Working with such motivated and creative people was a real highlight, and I loved shaping the content, seeing ideas develop into pieces, and watching how the community responded. I particularly valued the student feature series, where we interviewed graduate students about their research. I thought it offered a wonderful glimpse into emerging work as well as highlighted the breadth and enthusiasm of the next generation. I also remember one time a postdoc we’d invited to contribute was delighted to find that their article had sparked real engagement, even drawing comments and attention from senior figures. This was a small example, but one that really captured the magazine’s broader impact and moments like that made the whole effort worthwhile. The somewhat informal, community-oriented space for DS news filled a unique niche and it will be missed.
Zachary Kilpatrick (2022-2023):
Much like its home conference, I have always found DSWeb to be an unassuming yet warm and vital space for our Dynamical Systems community—a place where people at every stage could share ideas, stories, and discoveries. I especially appreciated how the magazine captures the human side of our field through biographical pieces and reflections. Serving as Editor-in-Chief was a privilege, and I’m grateful to have worked with so many talented and generous colleagues. I always enjoyed seeing what new media, research summary, or bio came over the wire. Though it’s bittersweet to see this chapter close, I’m hopeful that the same energy and creativity that sustained DSWeb for two decades will shape whatever comes next. Onward!
Casey Diekman (2024-2025):
DSWeb has played an important role within the dynamical systems community for the past two decades and it has truly been an honor to serve as co-EIC (along with Eric Forgoston) of the magazine these last two years. The Professional Feature and Media Gallery sections have been particularly active during this time, thanks to the diligent work of Jie Sun and Al Volkening. Other highlights included the 2024 DSWeb Tutorial Software Contest organized by Korana Burke (congratulations again to the winners, QGLAB: a MATLAB Package for Solving PDEs Posed on Quantum Graphs, and XPPLORE: Import, Analyze, and Visualize XPPAUT Data in MATLAB) and a beautiful In Memoriam article for Henry Abarbanel, written by Eve Armstrong. These contributions illustrate the unique content that can be featured in a more informal, community-driven venue like DSWeb. My biggest thank you goes to James Haines for his tireless work over the years putting together the quarterly magazine issues and maintaining the portal… without James, DSWeb never would have been able to achieve the significant impact that it has had on the field. Finally, I’d like to encourage the DSWeb community to stay engaged and contribute to the next iteration of the SIAG DS website and newsletter in whatever forms they take going forward.