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News 2003

Departments Coordinate Job Offer Deadlines

Departments of Mathematics in the U.S. have, for the fifth year in a row, formally adopted an agreement to coordinate deadlines for responding to postdoctoral job offers: The NSF has agreed to notify fellowship recipients no later than Saturday, January 31, 2004, and the departments have agreed not to require responses to postdoctoral job offers before Monday, February 9, 2004. See details, including the list of departments adhering to the agreement. [Item Posted 12/23/03]

Mathematics winners of the Siemens Westinghouse Competition

Teen mathematicians were among the national winners of the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science & Technology. In the individual category, Linda Westrick (Maggie Walker Governor's School, Richmond, VA) won a US$40,000 scholarship for her project, Investigations of the Number Derivative. "She developed her project out of love for pure mathematics for its own sake" and intends to become a mathematics professor. In the team category, Araceli Fernandez (Harlandale Sr. High School, San Antonio, TX), Yiduo "David" Wang (Lincoln High School, Portland, OR) and Hannah Chung (Lyndon B. Johnson, Austin TX) won a US$10,000 scholarship for their project, Eccentric Graphs of Block Graphs and Trees. The team began their project at the Mathworks Honors Summer Math Camp at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX. The Siemens Westinghouse Competition, now in its fiftieth year, is administered by the College Board and is supported by the Siemens Foundation, "dedicated to providing scholarships and increasing access to higher education for gifted students in science, mathematics and technology-related disciplines." [Item posted 12/11/03]

Prime Number Record Extended

Michael Shafer, a 26-year-old graduate student in chemical engineering, has discovered the largest known prime number. The number is 220,996,011 - 1, and is 6,320,430 digits long. The discovery was part of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project, in which over 60,000 volunteers from around the world take part. The news of this 40th known Mersenne prime is posted on the GIMPS website. [Item posted 12/4/03]

Pre-registration now open for ICM 2006

The International Mathematical Union (IMU) has announced that pre-registration is now open for the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM 2006), which will be held at the Palacio Municipal de Congresos de Madrid (Madrid City Hall Convention Center) in Madrid, Spain, 22-30 August 2006. The ICM 2006 website includes information on the organization, scientific program, sponsors, locale, and registration. The IMU also invites mathematicians to subscribe to its electronic newsletter, IMU-Net. [Item posted 12/1/03]

Carnegie Names Two Mathematicians State Professors of the Year

Joseph A. Gallian and Judy Kasabian have been named State Professors of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Gallian is a professor in the mathematics and statistics department at the University of Minnesota Duluth and runs the Duluth Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Kasabian is a professor in the mathematics department at El Camino College, Torrance, California, and is co-author of Meet the Teachers Roundtable: Connecting Future Teachers with Role Model Teachers . [Item posted 11/25/03]

James G. Arthur New AMS President Elect

James G. Arthur, of the University of Toronto, is the new President Elect of the AMS. His term as President Elect officially begins on February 1, 2004. All election results are now online. [Item posted 11/24/03]

2003 Clay Research Awards announced

Richard Hamilton (Columbia University) and Terence Tao (UCLA) have been awarded the 2003 Clay Research Awards, which recognize extraordinary achievement in mathematics. Hamilton was recognized for his introduction of the Ricci flow equation and his development of it into one of the most powerful tools in geometry and topology. Tao was recognized for his ground-breaking work in analysis, notably his optimal restriction theorems in Fourier analysis, his work on the wave map equation, and his global existence theorems for KdV type equations. See the Clay Mathematics Institute website for more information on the award winners, their research, and the Institute. [Item posted 11/21/03]

von Neumann Centennial Celebration

The 100th anniversary of the birth of John von Neumann was celebrated in Budapest, Hungary, last month. AMS Past President Arthur Jaffe of Harvard University attended to represent the Society and the National Academy of Sciences. Past President Jaffe read excerpts from letters of greetings by David Eisenbud, President of the AMS, and by Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences, and presented the originals of these letters to E. Szilveszter Vizi, President of the Hungarian Academy. The video of Jaffe’s presentation can be viewed on the web. Jaffe also participated in the dedication of a large stone plaque on the birth home of John von Neumann, sponsored jointly by the Bolyai Mathematical Society (Hungarian Mathematical Society) and the AMS. The program of the von Neumann Centennial Celebration, including more videos of talks, is posted online. [Item posted 11/13/03]

Glimm and Witten Receive National Medal of Science

James G. Glimm, Chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics at Stony Brook University, and Edward Witten, the Charles Simonyi Professor of Physics in the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Natural Sciences, are among eight winners of the 2002 National Medal of Science. Glimm has made contributions to shock wave theory, quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. Witten, a mathematical physicist, is renowned for his work in string theory. There is more information online about Glimm, Witten, and all 2002 Medalists. [Item posted 10/23/03]

NSF Graduate Fellowships

The National Science Foundation will award approximately 900 three-year Graduate Research Fellowships in science, math, and engineering. Each fellowship provides a 12-month stipend of US$27,500 along with an education allowance of US$10,500 per year. The application deadline is November 5, 2003. The program website has more information. [Item posted 10/1/03]

2003 Erdös Memorial Lecture

This year's Erdös Memorial Lecture will be given by Avi Wigderson of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ) and Hebrew University (Jerusalem) on October 3. Wigderson's lecture, Some Insights of Computational Complexity Theory, takes place during the joint Central and Western Section Meeting of the AMS at the University of Colorado. The abstract of Wigderson's address is available online. The Erdös Memorial Lecture is an annual invited address made possible by a fund created by Andrew Beal, a Dallas banker. The lecture is named for mathematician Paul Erdös (1913-1996). More information about the meeting can be found here. [Item posted 9/16/03]

AMS Elections

AMS members are invited to vote for candidates in several of the Society's governing bodies. Read the Nominations for President Elect and Biographies of the Candidates. You should shortly receive either a traditional paper ballot or an email with instructions for voting online. The AMS website contains more information about the 2003 balloting process.

PLEASE NOTE : The set of nomination articles published in the September issue of the Notices about the two candidates for President Elect, James G. Arthur and Donald G. Saari, is incomplete. The final two paragraphs of Eric Friedlander's article on behalf of the latter were omitted. Please read the full text of both nominating articles before voting. They can be found at http://www.ams.org/secretary/noms-pres.pdf. [Item revised 9/02/03]

Mathematics Events in Washington

Recent events in Washington brought mathematics to the attention of Members of Congress and their staff. Joel E. Cohen (Rockefeller and Columbia Universities) spoke about mathematics and biology at the Annual AMS Congressional Lunch Briefing on Capitol Hill , which drew a capacity crowd. The AAS-AMS-APS Public Service Awards were presented to Congressmen Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Alan Mollohan (D-WV), and Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) for their outstanding public service in support of science. Arthur Jaffe, AMS Past-President, presented the award to Mollohan. Kenneth Golden (University of Utah) was the AMS exhibitor at the annual exhibition of the Coalition for National Science Funding . His "Mathematics of Sea Ice" exhibit attracted a constant stream of Congressional staffers and Members of Congress. The AMS Washington Office organized this year's exhibition. [Item posted 8/21/03]

Opening of African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), a new educational center being established in Cape Town, South Africa, will have a launch ceremony September 18 and 19. The goals of AIMS are: to promote mathematics and science in Africa, to recruit and train talented students and teachers, and to build capacity for African initiatives in education, research, and technology. In addition to African students, AIMS will also recruit a contigent of non-African students. See the AIMS website for more information. [Item posted 8/21/03]

Armand Borel, 1923-2003

Armand Borel has died at the age of 80. Born in Switzerland, he spent his early professional years in Europe. Later he was professor at the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Mathematics from 1957 to 1993. In 1991, Borel received the AMS's Steele Prize Career Award. The prize citation (in the October, 1991 issue of Notices ) states that "His work provided the empirical base for a great swath of modern mathematics and his observations pointed out the structures and mechanisms that became central concerns of mathematical activity." The citation concludes as follows: "It is just simply not possible to cite a career more accomplished or fruitful or one more meaningful to the contemporary mathematical community." [Item posted 8/12/03]

Two Mathematics Students Named Davidson Fellows

Daniel Kane of Madison, Wisconsin and Anders Kaseorg of Charlotte, North Carolina have been honored by the Davidson Institute--a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing gifted students. Daniel received a US$50,000 scholarship for "Two Papers on the Theory of Partitions," while Anders received a US$25,000 scholarship for his investigation into p-set games. Both students also earned gold medals at the 2003 International Mathematical Olympiad in Japan. The Institute has more information on Daniel and Anders and the other 13 Fellows for 2003 at its website. [Item posted 8/5/2003]

Faces of Mathematics Exhibition Online

Faces of Mathematics , an exhibit featuring 20 influential mathematicians, has been on display in the U.K. and is now viewable online. The exhibition includes black & white portraits taken by the photographer Marc Atkins alongside a description of each subject's research interests and personal viewpoints on mathematics. The mathematicians featured are Sir Michael Atiyah, Ken Brown, Ed Corrigan, Peter Donnelly, Marcus du Sautoy, Gero Friesecke, Paul Glendinning, Timothy Gowers, Valerie Isham, Frank Kelly, Frances Kirwan, Shahn Majid, Oliver Penrose, David Rand, Gareth Roberts, Tony Scholl, Gwyneth Stallard, Andrew Stuart, Jonathan Tawn, and Ulrike Tillmann. [Item posted 7/18/03]

State of the AMS, 2003

The annual Report of the Executive Director, the State of the AMS, and the annual Report of the Treasurer have been posted online. Both reports are available here. [Item posted 7/15/03]

New Director at PIMS

The Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences has announced the appointment of Ivar Ekeland as its director for a period of five years, starting September 1, 2003. The Institute's website has more information about the appointment. [Item posted 7/3/03]

New NSF Program Solicitation: Enhancing the Mathematical Sciences Workforce in the 21st Century

The NSF is soliciting proposals for Enhancing the Mathematical Sciences Workforce in the 21st Century (EMSW21). The program solicitation replaces NSF 02-120 (VIGRE). The long-range goal of the EMSW21 program is to increase the number of U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents who are well-prepared in the mathematical sciences and who pursue careers in the mathematical sciences and in other NSF-supported disciplines. EMSW21 builds on the VIGRE program and now includes a broadened VIGRE activity, an additional component for Research Training Groups (RTG) in the Mathematical Sciences and an additional component for Mentoring through Critical Transition Points (MCTP) in the Mathematical Sciences. The proposal deadline is September 16, yearly .

Travel Grants Available for ICME-10

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has announced that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding travel grants to the Tenth International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME-10), which will be July 4-11, 2004 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The grants are available to K-12 mathematics teachers, mathematicians, and mathematics teacher educators who are U.S. citizens. The congress will include focused discussion groups with world-renowned scholars in mathematics and mathematics education, and will emphasize the relationship between research and practice in mathematics education; reasoning, proof and proving in mathematics education; the professional development of mathematics teachers; the shaping of mathematics education through testing; and information and communication technology in mathematics education. A selection committee made up of representatives from the NCTM, the American Mathematical Society, the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges, the Mathematical Association of America, and the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction will review applications and award the ICME-10 travel grants. See the above web page or contact Gail Burrill by email burrill@msu.edu or telephone 517-432-2152 ext. 133 for the travel grant application and for selection criteria. The application deadline is September 20, 2003 and notifications will be made by November 15, 2003. [Item posted 6/12/03]

Women's International Science Collaboration Invites Applications

Women's International Science Collaboration (WISC) awards small travel grants on a competitive basis to U.S. scientists to plan and design new collaborations with colleagues in Europe, newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, Near East, Middle East, Pacific, Africa, the Americas, and Asia. The grants--US$4,000-US$5,000, depending on region--will provide travel and living support for a U.S. scientist, and when appropriate, a co-PI to visit a partner country to develop a research program. Funds can also be used to support a second visit to the partner country or for a foreign partner to travel to the U.S. Only fields funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and interdisciplinary research cutting across these fields are eligible. WISC is a partnership between the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the NSF. The next application deadline is July 15, 2003 . The AAAS/WISC website has more application information and region-specific guidelines. [Item posted 6/12/03]

TeX Turns 25

Next month the annual TeX Users Group (TUG) meeting will celebrate the 25th anniversary of TeX-- a widely used typesetting system written by Donald Knuth. The meeting will be held July 20-24 in Hawaii. More information about the meeting is at the TUG Annual Meeting website. [Item posted 6/9/03]

Mathematicians Awarded Guggenheim Fellowships

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced the 2003 Guggenheim Fellowships. One hundred eighty-four artists, scholars, and scientists who were selected on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. The following are the awardees working in the mathematical sciences, together with their affiliations and areas of research: Michel C. Delfour (University of Montreal: Intrinsic theory of thin and asymptotic shells); Neil Immerman (University of Massachusetts, Amherst: Applications of descriptive and dynamic complexity); Bong H. Lian (Brandeis University: Studies in mirror symmetry, geometry, and arithmetic); Ken Ono (University of Wisconsin, Madison: Studies in number theory); Richard E. Schwartz (University of Maryland, College Park: Connections between real and complex hyperbolic discrete groups); Fei-Ran Tian (Ohio State University: Nonlinear dispersive oscillations); and Jack Xin (University of Texas at Austin: Partial differential equations for processing audio signals). [Item posted 6/2/03]

2003 USA Mathematical Olympiad Winners

The 2003 USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) was held April 29 and 30. Tiankai Liu of Exeter, New Hampshire and Po Ru Loh of Madison, Wisconsin received perfect scores. The ten other highest scorers in the USAMO, listed in alphabetical order, were: Boris Alexeev of Athens, Georgia; Jae Bae of Hackensack, New Jersey; Daniel Kane of Madison, Wisconsin; Anders Kaseorg of Charlotte, North Carolina; Mark Lipson of Lexington, Massachusetts; Po Ling Loh of Madison, Wisconsin; Aaron Pixton of Vestal, New York; Kwokfung Tang of Exeter, New Hampshire; Tony Zhang of Exeter, New Hampshire; and Yan Zhang of Alexandria, Virginia. The twelve USAMO winners will attend the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program, after which six of the twelve students will be selected as the U.S. team to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) to be held in Tokyo, Japan, July 7-19, 2003. The USAMO website includes a description of the competition, qualifiers by state, winners, and students who received Honorable Mention. [Item posted 6/2/03]

Mathematicians Awarded Schock Prize

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced that two 2003 Rolf Schock Prizes will be awarded to mathematicians--Solomon Feferman and Richard P. Stanley, both of the U.S. The awards, approximately USUS$51,400, are being given to Feferman (Stanford University) "for his works on the arithmetization of metamathematics, transfinite progressions of theories, and predicativity," and to Stanley (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) "for his fundamental contributions to combinatorics and its relationship to algebra and geometry, in particular for his important contributions to the theory of convex polytopes and his innovative work on enumerative combinatorics." [Item posted 5/29/03]

AMS Epsilon Fund Makes Awards

The AMS has chosen eight summer mathematics programs to receive Epsilon grants for activities in the summer of 2003. The programs receiving grants are: All Girls/All Math (University of Nebraska); Canada/USA Mathcamp (Mathematics Foundation of America); Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics (Amherst, MA); PROMYS (Boston University); Ross Mathematics Program (The Ohio State University); Stanford University Mathematics Camp; SWT Honors Summer Math Camp (Southwest Texas State University); and the University of Chicago Young Scholars Program. The grants will support program expenses and student scholarships. The grants for summer 2003 are paid for by the AMS Epsilon Fund for Young Scholars (supplemented by the AMS Program Development Fund). Information about applying for Epsilon grants is available here. [Item posted 5/20/03]

National Calculus Award announced

Lester Mackey, a senior at Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills, New York has won the third annual National High School Calculus Student Award. Calculus.org--based at the University of California at Davis, Williams College, and Wake Forest University--awards the prize of US$1,000. Read more about Calculus.org, the annual competition, and resources for the calculus student. [Item posted 5/19/03]

AWM Announces Essay Contest Winners

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) announces the winners of the Biographies of Contemporary Women in Mathematics essay contest. First prize and honorable mention essays were selected from each category of submissions--from middle school, high school, college and graduate students. The grand prize winner is Alyssa Chase for her essay Peggy Tang Strait: A Pioneer in Uncharted Territory. [Item posted 5/19/03]

NSF Conference on Funding Opportunities

More than 200 representatives from departments across the country attended a meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on May 9-10 to hear about changes in the mathematical sciences programs at the National Science Foundation. William Rundell, the Director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences, launched the meeting with an overview presentation that described the current state of NSF and new directions. In particular, the highly publicized VIGRE program now has counterparts that provide more flexibility for more departments. During the meeting, attendees also had an opportunity to discuss some of the major issues of research funding, including the number and nature of awards. [Item posted 5/12/03]

Difficulty in Prime Gap Proof

A technical difficulty has been found in the recent preprint on the size of small gaps between prime numbers. An update has been posted at the American Institute of Mathematics website regarding the error in the proof. [Item posted 5/7/03]

Canadian Mathematical Society added to Combined Membership List

The American Mathematical Society and Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) are pleased to announce that CMS members are now included in the Combined Membership List (CML) online at www.ams.org/cml. The addition of the CMS brings the number of participating professional societies to six--the AMS, the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC), the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)--and the total number of individuals listed to over 55,000. The CML includes all individual members in the six organizations. For each member, the CML provides address, title, department, institution, telephone number (if available), electronic address (if indicated), and membership affiliation(s). The CML has long been valued as a reference for keeping in touch with colleagues and for making connections in the mathematical sciences community. Now the directory includes colleagues in the Canadian Mathematical Society, founded in 1979 "to promote and advance the discovery, learning and application of mathematics." The Combined Membership List --a joint project of the AMS, MAA and SIAM--is searchable online and the 2003-2004 print edition will be available in fall 2003.

National Academy of Sciences Elects Mathematical Scientists

The National Academy of Sciences announced on April 29 the election of 72 new members and associates in recognition of their achievements in original research. Among them are these individuals in the mathematical sciences: George E. Andrews (professor of mathematics, Pennsylvania State University at University Park), James O. Berger (professor of statistics, Duke University), Yakov Eliashberg (professor of mathematics, Stanford University), Solomon W. Golomb (professor of communications, University of Southern California), and Haim Brezis (professor of mathematics, Université Pierre & Marie Curie (Paris VI), France). [Item Posted 4/30/03]

2003-04 AMS Centennial Fellowships Awarded

Henry H. Kim of the University of Toronto and John E. Meier of Lafayette College have been awarded AMS Centennial Fellowships for 2003-04. The amount of each fellowship is US$57,000, drawn from a fund created in 1973. In 1988, the Fellowship was renamed to honor the AMS Centennial. [Item posted: 4/29/03]

Clay Mathematics Institute Appoints President

The Directors of the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) have appointed James A. Carlson, Mathematics Professor at the University of Utah, as CMI's second President, effective August 2003. As President, Carlson will lead the research activities of the Institute, develop programs, and serve as liaison with leading mathematicians worldwide. Carlson joined the Mathematics Department at the University of Utah in 1975, and was a founding member of the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute and of its high school teacher summer program. His research interests span the areas of analysis, complex geometry and topology. For more information contact Eric Woodbury, Chief Administrative Officer, at the Clay Mathematics Institute. [Item posted 4/28/03]

Institute for Advanced Study Announces New Director

Peter Goddard, a mathematical physicist who is currently Master of St. John's College at the University of Cambridge, will become the eighth Director of the Institute for Advanced Study as of January 1, 2004. Dr. Goddard was instrumental in the creation of The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and served as its first Deputy Director. He was a winner, with David Olive in 1997, of the Dirac Prize and Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, and was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1974 in the School of Natural Sciences and in 1988 in the School of Mathematics. More information about Dr. Goddard and the appointment can be found here. [Item posted: 4/22/03]

3 Professors share Turing Award

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced that the 2002 A.M. Turing Award will go to Leonard L. Adleman, Ronald L. Rivest and Adi Shamir for their contributions to the theory and practical application of public key cryptography. While at M.I.T. in 1977 they developed the RSA algorithm that is today's most widely used encryption method on the Internet and in banking and insurance industries. The news release also states that the RSA code "has become the foundation for an entire generation of technology security products and has also inspired important work in both theoretical computer science and mathematics." The three will share the prize of US$100,000 that is financed by Intel, Inc. [Item posted 4/18/03]

Jean-Pierre Serre Receives Abel Prize of US$816,000

Jean-Pierre Serre of the College de France in Paris has been named as the first winner of the Abel Prize. Presented by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the prize carries a cash award of 6 million Norwegian kroner (approximately USUS$816,000). The Abel Prize, intended to be on the same level as the Nobel Prize, is awarded annually to recognize outstanding achievement in mathematics. Serre is honored "for playing a key role in shaping the modern form of many parts of mathematics, including topology, algebraic geometry and number theory." Further information may be found on the web page of the Norwegian Academy.

"The Math Life" on Public Television

"The Math Life," a documentary featuring interviews with mathematicians talking about topics such as how they became interested in mathematics, will begin airing on most public television stations this month. A description of the documentary, along with a list of stations that are broadcasting it, is here. The documentary was shown at MathFest last August and at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in January.

Major Breakthrough in Prime Number Theory

Dan Goldston and Cem Yildirim recently proved a result regarding the size of small gaps between prime numbers. Their work is a major step toward showing that there are infinitely many twin primes. The American Institute of Mathematics has details about the result on its website. Editor's note [5/1/03]: Since this news was posted problems have been discovered with the proof of the result. An update will be posted on the AMS website when more information is available.

Conference on NSF/DMS Funding Opportunities

The AMS, American Statistical Association (ASA), Mathematical Association of America (MAA), and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) are planning a workshop on opportunities sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS). This workshop for mathematical sciences department chairs and for heads of related programs will provide information about DMS funding opportunities and will offer participants the chance to share their experiences. The workshop builds on the VIGRE workshop held in the spring of 2002 : the conference will have plenary sessions that provide overviews of DMS programs, expectation and directions, as well as concurrent sessions on various aspects of the DMS opportunities, such as VIGRE, FRG, individual sub-disciplinary programs, and joint solicitations with other groups within the NSF and other federal agencies. The Conference on Funding Opportunities will be held May 9-10, 2003, at the Hyatt Crystal City in Arlington, VA. Information and registration can be found at www.amstat.org/meetings/dmsconference/.

Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study Call for Proposals

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) has issued a request for applications for pilot research projects and database development for a new initiative, Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS). "MIDAS will consist of a centralized database and a network of multidisciplinary scientists conducting computational and mathematical research to improve the ability to detect, control, and prevent emerging infectious diseases caused by naturally occurring or intentionally released pathogens, including those relevant to biodefense." See additional information and the request for applications.

Sloan Foundation Awards Fellowships to 20 Mathematicians

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has named 117 scientists and scholars as recipients of Sloan Research Fellowships for 2003. Among them are 20 mathematicians: Ian Agol (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago), Guillaume Bal (Columbia Univ.), Saugata Basu (Georgia Institute of Technology), Danny Calegari (California Institute of Technology), James Ellis Colliander (University of Toronto), Wee Teck Gan (Princeton Univ.), Tom Graber (Univ. of California at Berkeley), Christopher Hacon (Univ. of Utah), Brendan Hassett (Rice Univ.), Michael Hutchings (Univ. of California at Berkeley), Alexandru D. Ionescu (Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison), Trachette L. Jackson (Univ. of Michigan at Ann Arbor), Navin Khaneja (Harvard University), Zhiqin Lu (Univ. of California at Irvine), Stephen David Miller (Rutgers Univ. at New Brunswick), Alexander Postnikov (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Sylvia Serfaty (New York University), Luminita Vese (Univ. of California at Los Angeles), Mu-Tao Wang (Columbia Univ.), and Andrzej Zuk (Univ. of Chicago). Winners receive grants of US$40,000. The Chronicle of Higher Education published the entire list of awardees, and the Sloan Foundation website posts information about the Fellowship program. [Item posted 3/6/02]

NSF, Science Announce Science Visualization Contest

The National Science Foundation and the journal Science (published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science) are accepting entries for the inaugural 2003 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge . Winning selections will be featured in a special section of Science 's September 12 issue and winners will receive an expense-paid trip to the NSF for its "Art and Science Project" exhibit and lecture. The contest is open to individuals who produce or commission photographs, illustrations, animations, interactive media, video sequences or computer graphics for research. Entries must have been produced after January 1, 2003, and the deadline for postmarked submissions is May 31, 2003. See the contest rules, entry submission instructions and entry forms. [Item posted 3/2/03]

CMI Announces Advisory Board and Long Term Prize Fellows

The Directors of The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) announced on February 3 the appointment of the following mathematicians to CMI's Scientific Advisory Board: Simon Donaldson of Imperial College in London, Gregory A. Margulis of Yale University, Richard B. Melrose of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yum-Tong Siu of Harvard University. They join Andrew Wiles of Princeton University. The CMI's appointment of two new Long-Term Prize Fellows was announced on February 6: Maria Chudnovsky, age 26, has been appointed for five years, and Elon Lindenstrauss, age 32, has been appointed for 2 years. The two award winners are among the world's most outstanding young mathematics talent. Long Term Prize Fellows work for CMI as math researchers for a designated number of years and carry out frontier research at whatever location best supports the advancement of their work. [Item posted 2/7/03]

AWM Announces Essay Contest Winners

The Grand Prize winner of the 2002 AWM Essay Contest is Alyssa Chase of Townsend Harris High School in Flushing NY, for her essay Peggy Tang Strait: A Pioneer in Uncharted Territory. Winning essays were also chosen from each student category: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Undergraduate, and Graduate. The AWM supports the annual essay contest for biographies of contemporary women mathematicians and statisticians in academic, industrial, and government careers to increase awareness of women's ongoing contributions to the mathematical sciences. The essays are based primarily on an interview with a woman currently working in a mathematical sciences career. Visit the AWM website to read the winning essays. [Item posted 2/7/03]

CMI Scientific Advisory Board Announced

The Directors of The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) have announced the appointment of the following mathematicians to CMI's Scientific Advisory Board: Professor Simon Donaldson of Imperial College in London, Professor Gregory A. Margulis of Yale University, Richard B. Melrose of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yum-Tong Siu of Harvard University. They join Professor Andrew Wiles of Princeton University. [Item posted 2/6/03]

Mathematics Awareness Month 2003

The 2003 Mathematics Awareness Month theme is Mathematics and Art . Visit the Mathematics Awareness Month website to read the announcement, download the theme poster, see a sample news release, link to related resources, and get ideas for how to celebrate and publicize Mathematics Awareness Month this April. [Item posted 2/4/03]

AMS Policy for divine/RoweCom/Faxon Library Service Subscriptions

The American Mathematical Society will work individually with all institutions that paid for 2003 subscriptions to AMS products through divine/RoweCom/Faxon to ensure that institutions receive uninterrupted access to our publications and database products. If your institution will commit to subscribe to those same products for the following year, 2004, we will work with you to be certain you do not have to pay a second time for your 2003 subscription. As a scientific society as well as publisher, our mission is to provide a stable environment for the dissemination of scholarship and research. We believe this policy best reflects that mission. Your commitment to subscribe in 2004 should be a good faith commitment. We hope that the money paid for subscriptions is recovered and eventually applied for its original purchase. If only a portion is recovered and returned to the institutions, we hope to receive a proportional share in return for our pledge of uninterrupted service. For further information, please contact Lori Sprague (las@ams.org or 401-455-4064). John Ewing, Executive Director [Item Posted 1/28/03]

Mathematics at the AAAS Annual Meeting

There are several symposia with mathematical themes at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS has information about the meeting, which takes place in Denver from February 13 - 18, at its website. Titles of symposia involving mathematics, and their times, are listed below.
  • Game Theoretic Aspects of Internet Computation, Friday February 14, 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
  • Opening the Mind with Mathematics, Friday February 14, 2:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
  • Bioinformatics: Challenges in Education, Research and Business, Saturday February 15, 8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
  • Predictability and Randomness in Weather Forecasting, Saturday February 15, 10:30 a.m. - noon.
  • Math Inside! ... An Industrial View, Monday February 17, 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
  • Mathematical Models for Traffic Flow (Phantom Jams and Real Data), Monday February 17, 2:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
  • Modeling the Internet and the World Wide Web, Tuesday February 18, 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
  • Supercomputing and the New Biology, Tuesday February 18, 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
[Item posted 1/28/03]

First Report of the 2002 Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences Published

The 2002 Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences (First Report): Report on the 2001-2002 New Doctoral Recipients Faculty Salary Survey, by Don O. Loftsgaarden, James W. Maxwell, and Kinda Remick Priestley has just been published in the February issue of The Notices of the AMS. This report presents a statistical profile of recipients of doctoral degrees awarded by departments in the mathematical sciences at universities in the United States during the period July 1, 2001, through June 30, 2002. It includes a preliminary analysis of the fall 2002 employment plans of 2001-02 doctoral recipients and a demographic profile summarizing characteristics of citizenship status, sex, and racial/ethnic group. All information came from the departments that gave the degrees. (Item posted 1/24/03]

Prizes and Awards Announced at the Annual Joint Mathematics Meetings

See the news releases for information about each of the AMS prize winners announced at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, January 16, 2003 in Baltimore, Maryland, and read the January 2003 Prizes and Awards booklet which includes all the prizes and awards given by the AMS, MAA, AWM and JPBM, with citations and biographical notes.

2003 Wolf Prizes in Mathematics Announced

The 2003 Wolf Prize in Mathematics will be jointly awarded to Mikio Sato, Kyoto University, Japan, and John T. Tate, University of Texas, Austin. Sato is cited for "his vision of algebraic analysis and mathematical physics, which initiated several fundamental branches of mathematics." Tate is recognized for "his fundamental concepts in algebraic number theory. For over a quarter of a century, his ideas have dominated the development of arithmetic algebraic geometry." The awards will be presented in May by Mr. Mosche Katsav, President of the State of Israel, at a special ceremony at the Knesset on May 11, 2003. The Wolf Foundation was established by the late German-born inventor, diplomat and philanthropist Dr. Ricardo Wolf, "to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind." For more detailed information contact wolffund@netwision.net.il. [Item posted 1/21/03]

National High School Calculus Award Nominations

Nominations for the fourth annual National High School Calculus award are being accepted until February 28. A teacher may nominate any U.S. junior high or high school student for this US$1000 award. The calculus.org website has details about the award, including information about the 2002 competition. [Item posted 1/03]

News Archive 2002

News Archive 2001

News Archive Prior to 2001