Alexei Borodin Receives the Fermat Prize

Alexei Borodin has been awarded the 2019 Fermat Prize for the invention of integrable probability theory, a new area at the interface of representation theory, combinatorics, and statistical physics.

The prize also went to Maryna Viazovska, professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

The Fermat Prize is awarded every two years by the Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse to one or several mathematicians under the age of 45, for contributions to an area where Pierre de Fermat's work was particularly influential: statements of variational principles; foundations of probability and analytical geometry; and number theory.

Congratulations Alexei!

PRIMES Names Lusztig Mentors

From left, Professor George Lusztig, Yongyi Chen, Vishal Arul, and Kaavya Valiveti

Professor George Lusztig presented Yongyi Chen, Vishal Arul, and Kaavya Valiveti with 2020 George Lusztig PRIMES mentors awards at the Department’s annual Winter Social on December 3, 2019.

Yongyi Chen is a PRIMES 2011 alumnus who has served as a PRIMES, SPUR, and UROP+ mentor since 2017. His PRIMES student Kaan Dokmeci is a 2018 Regeneron STS scholar and a 2017 Siemens regional finalist.

Vishal Arul has served as a PRIMES and MathROOTS mentor since 2016, and has been the Academic Coordinator of MathROOTS since 2017. His PRIMES student Dhruv Rohatgi is a 2016 Siemens semifinalist and a 2017 Regeneron STS scholar.

Kaavya Valiveti began as a PRIMES mentor this year, and is leading two reading projects simultaneously.

Congratulations to Vishal, Yongyi, and Kaavya, and thank you George for making the Lusztig mentorship possible!

Larry Guth Receives Bôcher Memorial Prize

The American Mathematical Society has chosen Larry Guth to receive the 2020 Bôcher Memorial Prize.

Larry received the prize for his “deep and influential development of algebraic and topological methods for partitioning the Euclidean space and multi-scale organization of data, and his powerful applications of these tools in harmonic analysis, incidence geometry, analytic number theory, and partial differential equations.” Larry wrote about this technique in his book “Polynomial Methods in Combinatorics.”

“Larry is being recognized for two outstanding papers that use polynomial partitioning, a powerful technique first introduced by Larry together with Nets Katz for their solution of the Erdos distinct distance problem in incidence geometry,” said Department Head Michel Goemans.

The other 2020 Bôcher Prize recipients are Camillo De Lellis and Laure Saint-Raymond, and previous recipients from MIT include Richard Melrose and Isadore Singer.

Congratulations, Larry!

Lucas Mason-Brown named to Forbes 30 Under 30

PhD candidate Lucas Mason-Brown is among those named to this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneurs listing. His work as a cofounder of Data for Black Lives has built a network of more than 4,000 scientists and activists committed to using data to create measurable change in the lives of black people. He shares this accolade with the organization’s co-founder, Yeshimabeit Milner.

Congratulations Lucas!

Bonnie Berger to Deliver the AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture

Bonnie Berger has been selected to give the AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture at the 2020 SIAM Annual Meeting.

This Prize highlights the achievements of women in applied and computational mathematics. It was jointly established in 2002 to honor Sonia Kovalevsky and her work on the theory of differential equations.

Congratulations Bonnie!