Christopher Hacon and James McKernan Receive 2009 AMS Cole Prize in Algebra

January 6, 2009

Providence, RI---Christopher Hacon of the University of Utah and James McKernan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are receiving the 2009 AMS Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra. Presented every three years by the American Mathematical Society, the Cole Prize is one of the highest distinctions in algebra. The prize will be awarded on Tuesday, January 6, 2009, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Washington, DC.

According to the prize citation, Hacon and McKernan are receiving the Cole Prize "for their groundbreaking joint work on higher dimensional birational algebraic geometry. This work concerns the minimal model program, by which S. Mori and other researchers made great progress in understanding the geometry of three-dimensional projective algebraic varieties in recent decades. The case of dimension greater than three, however, remained largely open. The work of Hacon and McKernan has transformed the study of the minimal model program in higher dimensions." The citation specifically notes two papers by Hacon and McKernan, "Boundedness of pluricanonical maps of varieties of general type," Invent. Math. 166 (2006), 1-25, and "Extension theorems and the existence of flips", in Flips for 3-folds and 4-folds, 76-110, Oxford Lecture Ser. Math. Appl., 35, Oxford Univ. Press, 2007).

The full citation for this prize and additional information can be found in the Prize Booklet. Find out more about AMS prizes at http://www.ams.org/prizes-awards.

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