S10-02124_IAS_AR_COV.qxp:Layout 2 1/25/10 9:27 AM Page 1 I n s t i t u Institute for Advanced Study t e f o r A d v a n c IAS e d S t u d y R e INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY p o EINSTEIN DRIVE r PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08540 t f (609) 734-8000 o r www.ias.edu 2 0 0 8 – 2 0 0 9 Report for the Academic Year 2008–2009 S10-02124_IAS_AR_COV.qxp:Layout 2 1/20/10 7:25 AM Page 2 t is fundamental in our purpose, and our express I. desire, that in the appointments to the staff and faculty as well as in the admission of workers and students, no account shall be taken, directly or indirectly, of race, religion, or sex. We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions as to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex. Extract from the letter addressed by the Institute’s Founders, Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld, to the first Board of Trustees, dated June 4, 1930 Newark, New Jersey Cover: The Institute community gathers for After Hours Conversations, an evening of interdisciplinary discussion. Photo: Bentley Drezner S10-02124_IAS_AR_TXT.qxp:Layout 2 1/20/10 7:39 AM Page 1 The Institute for Advanced Study exists to encourage and support fundamental research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative, thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. S10-02124_IAS_AR_TXT.qxp:Layout 2 1/20/10 7:39 AM Page 2 THE SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL STUDIES, established in 1949 with the merging of the School of Economics and Politics and the School of Humanistic Studies, is concerned principally with the history of Western European, Near Eastern, and East Asian civilizations. The School actively promotes interdisciplinary research and cross-fertilization of ideas. THE SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS, established in 1933, was the first School at the Institute for Advanced Study. Several central themes in math- ematics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries owe their major impetus to discoveries that have taken place in the School, which today is an inter- national center for research on mathematics and computer science. The School sponsors, jointly with Princeton University, the Program for Women and Mathematics. THE SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCES, established in 1966, supports research in broad areas of theoretical physics, astronomy, and systems biology. Areas of current interest include elementary particle physics, string theory, quantum theory, and quantum gravity; investigating the origin and composi- tion of the universe; and conducting research at the interface of molecular biology and the physical sciences. The School sponsors Prospects in Theo- retical Physics, a program for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, founded in 1973, takes as its mission the analysis of societies and social change and is devoted to a multi- disciplinary, comparative, and international approach to social research and the examination of historical and contemporary problems. Institute for Advanced Study SPECIAL PROGRAMS include the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies, which explores different ways of viewing the world; the Artist-in-Residence Program; Director’sVisitors; the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute, which aims to increase awareness of the roles of professionals in all mathematics- based occupations; and the Science Initiative Group, dedicated to building science capacity in the developing world. INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY 2 S10-02124_IAS_AR_TXT.qxp:Layout 2 1/20/10 7:39 AM Page 3 IASInstitute for Advanced Study 5 Background and Purpose 6 Report of the Chairman 7 Report of the Director 9 Report of the School of Historical Studies 23 Report of the School of Mathematics 39 Report of the School of Natural Sciences 57 Report of the School of Social Science 65 Report of the Institute Libraries 66 The IAS Community 71 Reports of the Special Programs Contents 82 Acknowledgments 89 Founders,Trustees, and Officers of the Board and of the Corporation 90 Present and Past Directors and Faculty TABLE OF CONTENTS 91 Administration 93 Independent Auditors’ Report 3 S10-02124_IAS_AR_TXT.qxp:Layout 2 1/25/10 9:06 AM Page 4 ANDREA KANE The Institute for Advanced Study is a community of scholars whose primary purpose is the pursuit of advanced learning and scholarly exploration. It is also a true academic village, where Members live together in housing adjacent to the campus and interact through meals, walks, concerts, lectures, forums, and activities. S10-02124_IAS_AR_TXT.qxp:Layout 2 1/20/10 7:39 AM Page 5 Background and Purpose he Institute for Advanced Study was founded in 1930 with a major gift from New Jersey businessman and philanthropist Louis Bamberger and his sister Caroline Bamberger Fuld, who wished to use their Tfortunes to make a significant and lasting contribution to society. They sought the advice of educator Abraham Flexner, who developed the concept of the Institute as a community of scholars whose primary purpose would be the pursuit of advanced learning and scholarly exploration. The Institute for Advanced Study has remained committed to its founding principles, and its record of definitive scholarship and scientific achievement is unsurpassed. The Institute fills a unique role in postgraduate education and scientific and scholarly research. As “the university to universities,” in the words of Trustee Vartan Gregorian, the Institute serves all colleges and universities by providing a place where scholars can hone their skills and do their best work, thereby adding substantially to their ability to contribute as both teachers and scholars to the academic institutions where they base their careers. For young scholars just entering the academic world, an opportunity to work at the Institute can set the direction for lifelong research The Institute’s foremost interests and thereby determine professional careers. The Institute provides more objective is the advancement mature scholars with the opportunity to take new directions in their research or to complete a major piece of work away from the many obligations of working of knowledge and the life at a university. At a time when pure research and scholarly activities are deepening of understanding undervalued, the opportunities that the Institute provides have never been more across a broad range of necessary. The Institute’s foremost objective is the advancement of knowledge the humanities, sciences, and the deepening of understanding across a broad range of the humanities, sci- and social sciences. ences, and social sciences. One of the Institute’s unique strengths is its permanent Faculty of twenty-nine eminent scholars, whose broad interests and extensive ties to the larger academic world are reflected in their own work and also in the guidance and direction they provide to the Institute’s visiting scholars. The Faculty defines the major themes and questions that become the focus of each School’s seminars and other activities, and selects and works closely with visiting Members. Small in number and organized into four Schools (Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science), the Faculty and Members interact with one another without any departmental or disciplinary barriers. BACKGROUNDANDPURPOSE Each year the Institute awards fellowships to some 190 visiting Members from about one hundred universities and research institutions throughout the world. The Institute’s more than seven thousand former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership in the United States and abroad. Some twenty-two Nobel Laureates and thirty-four out of forty-eight Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of theWolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute.The Institute does not receive income from tuition or fees; resources for operations come from endowment income, grants from private foundations and government agencies, and gifts from corporations and individuals. 5 S10-02124_IAS_AR_TXT.qxp:Layout 2 1/20/10 7:39 AM Page 6 Report of the Chairman t is with a profound sense of responsibility that I have followed Martin L. Leibowitz in leading the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study. I am immensely honored to serve alongside my colleagues Ion the Board, as well as Director Peter Goddard, the Faculty, and the staff, who on a daily basis enable the advancement of knowledge in the sciences and humanities.We are deeply grateful for the guidance and direc- tion that Marty provided as Chairman in 2007–08 and are delighted that he continues to provide essential leadership asVice Chairman of the Board and President of the Corporation. The Institute’s Trustees are dedicated to supporting and maintaining the Institute’s unparalleled environment for world-class scholarship and research and the continuation of its traditions. In the past year, we welcomed Spiro J. Latsis, President of SETE SA, to the Board. We look forward to the addition of William H. Sewell Jr., the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago, who will join the Board as Academic Trustee for the School of Social Science as of July. Bill succeeds Peter L. Galison, the Joseph Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University, to whom the Board express- es its deep gratitude for his five years of admirable service. For seventy-nine years, the Institute has existed for no other purpose than to encourage and support curiosity- driven research. This clarity of mission has been made possible only through the independence afforded by the strength of the Institute’s endowment, which the Trustees have made a commitment to protect in these uncertain times by pledging contributions for operating costs that we anticipate will total $10 million for each of the next three years.