Report of ICCM 2016 at Beijing by Lo Yang*

The Seventh International Congress of Chinese 2. Another 2016 Morningside Gold Medal of Math- Mathematicians was held in Beijing from August 6 to ematics was given to Professor Si Li for his orig- August 11, 2016 (ICCM 2016). It was jointly hosted inal contributions to the mathematics of string by the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Sci- theory, in particular for his work on Landau- ence (AMSS), the Morningside Center of Mathemat- Ginzburg models and on BCOV theory. ics (MCM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). 3. Professor Wotao Yin was awarded the 2016 Tsinghua University, especially Prof. S. Y. Cheng and Morningside Gold Medal of Applied Mathemat- Prof. J. Xiao, provided strong supports for the prepa- ics for his ground breaking work on sparse op- ration. timization, ill-posed inverse problems and com- The opening ceremony of ICCM 2016 was held in pressed sensing. the People’s Great Hall on Aug. 6. President Chunli 4. Six young mathematicians were awarded the Bai of CAS, President Yong Qiu of Tsinghua Univer- 2016 Morningside Silver Medal of Mathematics. sity, Professor Shing-Tung Yau of Harvard University Namely, Prof. Binglong Chen for his contribu- and Mr. Ronnie Chan of Morningside Group gave wel- tions to Ricci flow and its applications; Prof. Kai- coming speeches. More than 1500 people attended. Wen Lau for his contributions to the theory of The most important agenda of the opening cer- arithmetic compactification of Shimura varieties emony was the announcement and presentation of and its applications to the arithmetic of automor- the Morningside Medal of Mathematics, Chern Prize phic forms; Prof. Ronald Lok Ming Lui for his con- and ICCM International Cooperation Award, which at- tributions to an emerging interdisciplinary field: tracted the attention of all participants. Computational Quasiconformal Geometry, and The Morningside Medal of Mathematics, estab- its applications to medical imaging, computer lished in 1998, recognizes the outstanding mathe- graphics and visions; Prof. Jun Yin for his con- maticians of Chinese descendent under the age of 45 tributions to the solution to the Wigner-Dyson- for their achievements in the research of pure and ap- Mehta conjecture and for developing the self- plied mathematics. The candidates were nominated consistent resolvent method in random matrix worldwide, then refereed by experts in the relevant theory; Prof. Lexing Ying for his contributions to field, discussed and voted finally by the members of the development and analysis of fast methods a selecting committee chaired by S.-T. Yau. The win- in scientific computing; Prof. Zhiwei Yun for his ners were kept as a secret until the announcement at contributions to the construction of motives with the ICCM opening ceremony. exceptional Galois groups, and his path-breaking For 2016, it was announced that: work with Prof. Wei Zhang on the L-Series of 1. Professor Wei Zhang was awarded the 2016 rank 2 local systems on curves over finite fields. Morningside Gold Medal of Mathematics for his Chern Prize, established in 2001 in honor of Prof. original contributions to number theory and au- Shiing-Shen Chern, recognizes mathematicians and tomorphic forms. individuals of Chinese descendent who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research * Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing or to public service activities in support of mathemat- E-mail: [email protected] ics. Mr. Ronnie Chan was awarded the 2016 Chern

2 NOTICES OF THE ICCM VOLUME 4,NUMBER 2 Prize for his tremendous contributions to the Chi- Sinica), and Prof. Xuegong Zhang (Professor of Pattern nese mathematics community, including the estab- Recognition and Bioinformatics at Tsinghua Univer- lishment of the Morningside Center of Mathemat- sity). ics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, supporting The last one, entitled “Unreasonable Effective- the Morningside Medal of Mathematics, and the Hang ness of Big Data,” was chaired by Dr. Harry Shum, Lung Mathematics Awards for high school students in Executive Vice President of Technology and Research Hong Kong. Prof. Xiping Zhu was another winner of at Microsoft Corporation. It discussed the theoretical 2016 Chern Prize for his contributions to evolution and research challenges of big data, and shared ex- equation in geometry and his training of geometers periences of successful consumer and enterprise ap- at Sun Yat-Sen University. plications of big data to search engines, e-commerce, ICCM International Cooperation Award, estab- and artificial intelligence. Panelists included Mr. Feng lished in 2004, recognizes individuals who have made Deng (Founding Managing Director of Northern Light significant contributions to the development of math- Venture Capital), Prof. Jianqing Fan (Frederick L. ematics in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Moore ’18 Professor of Finance at Princeton Univer- Taiwan through collaboration, teaching, and support- sity), Mr. Dowson Tong (Senior Executive Vice Presi- ing Chinese mathematicians. Prof. Björn Engquist was dent and President of Social Network Group at Ten- awarded the 2016 ICCM International Cooperation cent) and Dr. Jian Wang (Chairman of the Technology Award for his significant contributions in nurturing Steering Committee at Alibaba Group). and mentoring a large number of excellent Chinese In the evening of 6 August, New World Mathemat- mathematicians, and his strong support of the Chi- ics Awards was presented. The goal of this award is nese mathematical community throughout his career. to encourage outstanding Chinese mathematics stu- In the afternoon of 6 August, three symposiums dents worldwide in their pursuit of mathematical were held in the People’s Great Hall. truth. The first one, entitled “The Golden Age of Fun- In order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of damental Physics,” was chaired by Prof. Robbert Di- MCM, a short and grand ceremony was held in the jkgraaf (Director and Leon Levy Professor at the In- great hall of Tsinghua University in the morning of stitute for Advanced Study in Princeton). Followed Aug. 7. A video recording the development path of by the discovery of the Higgs particle and gravita- MCM was showed before the ceremony. Prof. Shing- tional waves, fundamental physics entered a golden Tung Yau, Prof. Jinghai Li (Vice President of CAS), age. This symposium discussed some challenges and Prof. Xu Chen (Party Committee Secretary of Tsinghua important problems of the new age. The panel mem- University), Prof. Lo Yang, Mr. Ronnie Chan, and Pro- bers also shared thoughts and viewpoints on how fessor Ye Tian spoke at the ceremony. President Li China can become more integrated into the inter- professed that the establishment of MCM was of national physics community. Panelists of this sym- great significance and MCM had played an important posium included Prof. David Gross (Nobel laureate, role and achieved breakthroughs in mathematics re- Chancellor’s Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at search, training young mathematicians, and improv- the University of California, Santa Barbara), Prof. An- ing international scientific exchanges. drew Strominger (Gwill E. York Professor of Physics at After the 20th anniversary ceremony of MCM, Harvard University), and Prof. Qi-Kun Xue (Professor 7 Morningside Lectures were delivered. The first and Vice President of Tsinghua University). speaker was Professor Edward Witten, Fields medal- The second one, entitled “Quantitative Biology ist and the Professor of Institute for Advanced Study and Biomedicine,” was chaired by Prof. Michael Wa- at Princeton. He described a new perspective on in- terman (Professor of Biological Sciences, Mathematics tegrable spin systems in two dimensions. After the and Computer Science at the University of Southern introduction to Professor Kevin Costello’s theory on California). It focused on the mathematical aspects of this system, he commented that it appears that one modern biology and medicine and pointed out some has to go to string theory and use a certain “brane” of the enormous opportunities for the mathematical system, the D4-NS5 system to give an a priori “non- sciences to make fundamental contributions to these perturbative definition” of the theory. important subjects. Panelists included Prof. Luonan The subsequent Morningside Speakers and their Chen (Executive Director and Professor of Key Labo- topics are: ratory of Systems Biology at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences), 1. Prof. Camillo De Lellis (University of Zurich), The Prof. Jianfeng Feng (Professor of Mathematics and Di- Nash-Kuiper theorem and a conjecture of On- rector of the Centre for Computational Systems Biol- sager; ogy at Fudan University), Prof. Wen-Hsiung Li (Direc- 2. Prof. Stanley Osher (UCLA), Overcoming the tor of the Biodiversity Research Center at Academia curse of dimensionality for certain Hamilton-

DECEMBER 2016 NOTICES OF THE ICCM 3 Jacobi (HJ) equations arising in control theory the ceremony. The ICCM is a nonprofit academic orga- and elsewhere; nization aiming to promote the exchange and cooper- 3. Prof. Yuri Tschinkel (New York University), Ratio- ation between Chinese mathematicians, and push for- nality properties of higher-dimensional algebraic ward the research and applications of mathematics. varieties (He also gave an introduction to Simon From Aug. 8 to Aug. 11, 36 plenary talks, 106 Foundation); invited talks and 22 contributed talks, which cov- 4. Prof. Björn Engquist (University of Texas at ered many areas including pure mathematics, applied Austin), Seismic imaging and the Monge-Ampère mathematics, statistics, and computational mathe- equation; matics, were given on the campus of the University of 5. Prof. Horng-Tzer Yau (Harvard University), Spec- Chinese Academy of Sciences. They were attended by tral statistics of random graphs; about one thousand persons, most of them are young 6. Prof. Zhiwei Yun (Stanford University), Inter- mathematicians and graduate students. Many partic- section numbers and higher derivatives of ipants expressed that it was a wonderful opportunity L-functions for function fields. for them to learn the latest development of so many An important event during ICCM 2016 was the subjects on mathematics. establishment of the International Consortium of There was a performance of Beijing Opera for Chinese Mathematicians which is also called ICCM ICCM 2016 in Tsinghua University. After the closing for short. The ICCM have been prepared for several of ICCM 2016, the oral exam of 2016 S. T. Yau Col- years by many Chinese mathematicians all around the lege student Mathematics Contests started immedi- world. In the evening of Aug. 7, Prof. Yau announced ately. Most committee members of this contest were its official establishment. More than one hundred the speakers of ICCM 2016. The contest awarding cer- mathematicians and several entrepreneurs attended emony was held in the evening of Aug. 12.

4 NOTICES OF THE ICCM VOLUME 4,NUMBER 2