Randolph-Macon College Mathematics Professor Raina Robeva has been awarded the Karl Peace Fellowship in Mathematics.

Karl Peace, a noted scientist, researcher, professor, and philanthropist, created this fellowship to help RMC attract, recruit and retain outstanding mathematics faculty and to fund their research and teaching endeavors.

“I am truly honored to be recognized with this distinguished Fellowship and grateful to the college for supporting my professional activities,” says Robeva.

Raina Robeva

Raina Robeva, who was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, earned her B.S. and M.S. from Sofia University and her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Robeva, whose research interests include systems biology, random processes and fields, and mathematical modeling for biology and the biomedical sciences, is the founding chief editor of the journal Frontiers in Systems Biology. She is also lead author/editor of the books An Invitation to Biomathematics, Mathematical Concepts and Methods in Modern Biology: Using Modern Discrete Models, Algebraic and Discrete Mathematical Methods for Modern Biology, and Algebraic and Combinatorial Computational Biology.

Robeva was the 2014 recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia—the Commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities. In 2018, she was the recipient of the H. Hiter Harris Jr. Memorial Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges; and the Intercollegiate Biomathematics Alliance Distinguished Senior Fellowship.

Robeva is past chair of the advisory board of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, and past chair of the Chapter in Mathematical and Computational Biological Science of the Mathematical Association of America. She has received funding for her research and educational projects from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and has mentored numerous student research projects. In addition, her translational research has resulted in three U.S. patents for assessment and diagnosis of attentional impairments.

Before joining the RMC faculty in 2019, she served as a professor of mathematical sciences and director of the Center for Science and Technology in Society at Sweet Briar College.

Karl Peace
Karl Peace, described as a distinguished professor, author, entrepreneur, consultant, and visionary, earned his B.S. from Georgia Southern University, his M.S. from Clemson University and his Ph.D. from the Medical College of Virginia.

Born the son of a sharecropper in Southern Georgia, Peace served as a tenured professor and taught mathematics at Randolph-Macon College from 1969-1978. He also served as an adjunct faculty member at Duke University, VCU, the University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, and Temple University.

Peace had a prominent career in the pharmaceutical industry, culminating as vice president of Worldwide Technical Operations at Warner Lambert/Parke-Davis. He later founded Biopharmaceutical Research Consultants, Inc., a high-level biotech consulting firm. He then returned to his undergraduate alma mater, Georgia Southern University, where he established the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, the first school of public health in the University System of Georgia, in honor of his late wife. Peace is currently Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar, Senior Research Scientist, and Professor of Biostatistics in the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University.

Peace has made critical contributions to the development and approval of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, prevent gastrointestinal ulcers, reduce the risk of myocardial infarction, and treat anxiety/depression.

A generous philanthropist to Randolph-Macon and beyond, Peace has endowed numerous scholarships and eminent scholar chairs. In addition to the Karl Peace Fellowship in Mathematics, he established the Moore-Peace Prize in Mathematical Scholarship at Randolph-Macon College, which he funded out of admiration for former Mathematics Professor Ronald Moore. The prize is given annually to a senior mathematics major who has demonstrated academic achievement and promise for graduate study in mathematics. Peace has also created two charitable gift annuities that will provide additional funding for the Moore-Peace Prize to ensure the prize continues in perpetuity. 

Randolph-Macon College is very grateful to Peace for all he has done and continues to do to benefit students and faculty. His success and generosity serve to inspire others and illustrate what can be accomplished through the power of philanthropy.