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Ooguri Receives Chunichi Turaev and Virelizier Awarded Cultural Award Balaguer Prize Hirosi Ooguri of the California Vladimir Turaev of Indiana Uni- Institute of Technology has been versity and Alexis Virelizier of honored with the 2016 Chunichi Université Lille 1 have been awarded Cultural Award. The award carries the 2016 Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer a cash prize of 2 million yen (ap- Prize for their monograph Monoidal proximately US$20,000). Categories and Topological Field According to the prize citation, Theory. The monograph introduces Ooguri was honored for the “devel- monoidal categories and Penrose’s opment of innovative methods of graphical calculus; gives an alge- modern in high energy braic description of the center of Hirosi Ooguri theory.” His work involves “creating monoidal categories based on the Vladimir Turaev new theoretical tools in quantum theory of Hopf monads as devel- field theory and superstring theory.” He is especially oped by Virelizier and coauthors; known for his work on topological , “which explains topological quantum field has had broad applications ranging from black hole phys- theories, including fundamental ics to and knot theory in mathematics.” earlier work of Reshetihkin-Turaev Ooguri is a past recipient of the AMS Eisenbud Prize and Turaev-Viro; and shows how to (2008), a Humboldt Research Award (2008), the Nishina present ribbon graphs by diagrams Memorial Prize (2009), a Simons Investigator Award on skeletons of 3-manifolds and (2012), and the Kodansha Prize for Science Books of define graph topological quantum Japan (2014) for his popular science book, Introduction to field theories by means of state Superstring Theory. He is a fellow of the AMS and of the sums on such skeletons. Their main Alexis Virelizier American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He also result interprets such graph theo- served as scientific advisor for a 3D movie, The Man from ries as surgery theories, thereby the 9 Dimensions, which tells the story of the quest for proving a conjecture stated by Turaev in 1995. Turaev tells the Notices: “I was born in St. Petersburg, the “theory of everything” and premiered in Tokyo. About Russia, into a family of theatre workers: my father was a the film, he says, “We expect a diverse audience, from first puppeteer and a theatre producer, while my mother gave graders to senior citizens. Some would be hearing about public lectures on literature and theatre. In the age of elementary particles for the first time, and others know eleven years, I entered the Russian system of mathemati- something about physics and want to learn more. I wanted cal circles and olympiads, which fostered my interest in to make sure that everyone can enjoy the movie and learn mathematics. The choice of mathematics as a job was the something from it.” smartest decision I made in my life. Among other clever Founded in 1947 by Japanese newspaper Chunichi things I did was having three kids (I wish I had more), writ- Shimbun to commemorate the enacting of the Japanese ing seven books, collaborating with several extraordinary constitution, the award celebrates individuals or organiza- mathematicians, learning three languages, and visiting a tions who have made significant contributions to the arts, number of wonderful countries.” humanities, and natural or social sciences. Verilizier tells the Notices: “I was born in Carcassonne in the south of . My father was an engineer and —From a California Institute of Technology news release my mother took care of the family. My passion for

824 Notices of the AMS Volume 63, Number 7 Mathematics People mathematics goes back to my childhood, and I had the J. Elisenda Grigsby of Boston chance to make it my job. My wife Chrystelle and I decided College was honored for her work on to name our son Evariste, a name not well known to the the invariants of 3-manifolds. She general public but very famous in the mathematical com- was also honored for her services munity!” to the mathematics community: for The prize carries a cash award of 15,000 euros (ap- running advanced workshops, train- proximately US$16,800). It is awarded for a mathematical ing graduate and undergraduate monograph of an expository nature presenting the latest students; for her contributions to developments in an active area of research in mathematics increasing participation of women in the mathematical sciences; and in which the recipient has made important contributions. for introducing talented middle- J. Elisenda Grisby The winning monograph will be published by Birkhäuser school girls to research mathemat- Verlag in the series Progress in Mathematics. ics. Grigsby is a runner who has done marathons in New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. She hopes to get back —From a Balaguer Foundation announcement into marathoning when her children, now two and five, are older. She also blogs (about math and her children) at elioop.blogspot.com. 2016 Rollo Davidson Prize Daniel Krashen of the Univer- sity of was honored for his Awarded work on local-to-global principles Omer Angel of the University of British Columbia, and for his service, including orga- nizing conferences and workshops, Jean-Christophe Mourrat of ENS training graduate students, and Lyon, and Hendrik Weber of the serving as a role model for under- University of Warwick have been represented minorities in math- awarded the 2016 Rollo Davidson ematics. Krashen’s main nonmath- Prize. Angel was honored “for his ematical hobby is music. He plays a many contributions to stochastic ge- variety of musical instruments, and Daniel Krashen ometry and in particular to random played bass, flute and keyboards maps and triangulations.” Outside in a funk band during graduate school. He is married to of mathematics, Angel enjoys hiking the algebraic geometer Angela Gibney, and they have two Omer Angel and juggling. Mourrat was recog- daughters, ages eight and ten, who are considering careers nized “for significant new results in in space exploration (this week at least). stochastic homogenization and in Jakita Nicole Owensby Thomas of Spelman College singular stochastic partial differen- was honored for her outstanding research on variations by tial equations and associated scal- which African American middle-school girls develop com- ing limits.” Weber was honored “for putational algorithmic thinking through game design and a series of significant new results increase their awareness of career applications in industry. in the theory of singular stochastic partial differential equations and —From a White House announcement associated scaling limits.” The Rollo Davidson Trust was founded in Jean-Christophe 1975 and awards the annual prize Prizes of the Mathematical Mourrat to young mathematicians working in the field of probability. Society of Japan The Mathematical Society of Japan (MSJ) has awarded —From a Davidson Trust several prizes for 2016. announcement The Spring Prize has been awarded to Hiroshi Iritani of Kyoto University for his outstanding contributions to research on Gromov-Witten invariants and mirror sym- PECASE Awards metry. The Spring Prize is awarded to mathematicians under the age of forty who have obtained outstanding Announced mathematical results. The 2016 Algebra Prize has been awarded to Hidenori Three young researchers, nomi- Hendrik Weber Katsurada of the Muroran Institute of Technology for nated by the National Science Foun- work on L-functions and periods of automorphic forms dation, whose work involves the of several variables; to Kazuhiko Kurano of Meiji Uni- mathematical sciences have received Presidential Early versity for contributions to intersection theory over local Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from rings and its applications to the theory of Cohen-Macaulay President Obama. modules; and to Masa-Hiko Saito of Kobe University for

August 2016 Notices of the AMS 825 Mathematics People work on moduli spaces of connections and differential Problem Solving Workshops, hosted by the University of equations of Painlevé type. Regina math department, for students in grades seven The Ikushi Prize of the Japan Society for the Promotion through ten who want to improve their math skills. The of Science (JSPS) has been awarded to Kazumasa Fuji- PIMS Education Prize recognizes individuals within the wara of Waseda University for his work on mathematical PIMS community who have played a major role in encour- foundations of semirelativistic nonlinear fields. The Ikushi aging activities that enhance public awareness and appre- Prize was established to encourage young researchers, ciation of mathematics, as well as fostering communica- particularly PhD students. tion among various groups concerned with mathematical The MSJ Prizes for Excellent Young Applied Mathemati- education at all levels. cians for 2015 have been awarded to: Michitaka Furuya, —From a PIMS announcement Tokyo University of Science, for some approaches for com- paring rainbow domination numbers; Hideki Murakawa, Kyushu University, for mathematics of cell-cell adhesion: experiments, modeling, and analysis; Takeshi Gotoda, Hertz Foundation Fellowships Kyoto University, for mathematical analysis of entropy Awarded dissipation via triple collapse of point vortices; and Harunori Monobe, Meiji University, for work on condi- Felipe Hernandez of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- tion for existence of traveling wave solutions, composed nology and Sarah McFann of the University of Alabama of convex curves, to an interface equation. are among the 2016 class of Hertz Foundation Fellows. Hernandez works in applied mathematics. McFann’s re- —From MSJ announcements search is in mathematical and computational modeling of complex biological systems. Hertz Foundation fellowships Witten Receives Young provide financial and fellowship support to PhD students in the physical, biological, and engineering sciences, free Investigator Award of most traditional restrictions.

Daniela M. Witten of the Uni- —From a Hertz Foundation announcement versity of Washington has been selected the recipient of the 2015 Raymond J. Carroll Young Inves- tigator Award “for her efforts in AWM Essay Contest Winners making seminal contributions to the development and application of sta- Announced tistical machine learning techniques The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) has to the analysis of high dimensional announced the winners of its 2016 essay contest, “Biog- data, particularly in the application raphies of Contemporary Women in Mathematics.” The Daniela M. Witten of these techniques to genomic grand prize was awarded to Priyanka Nanayakkara data.” The Carroll Young Investiga- of the University of California Los Angeles for her essay tor Award is given every two years to a statistician who “Engaging with the Ensemble: Alissa Crans’ Journey has made important contributions to the area of statistics. through Mathematics.” The essay also won first place in the undergraduate category and will be published in the —From a Texas A&M University announcement AWM Newsletter. First place in the high school category went to Emily Jia of the Illinois Math and Science Academy Maidorn Awarded PIMS in Aurora, Illinois, for her essay “To Count the Natural Numbers,” about Tanya Khovanova of the Massachusetts Education Prize Institute of Technology. First place in the middle school category was awarded to Adun Oladeji, homeschooled, Patrick Maidorn of the University of Alpharetta, Georgia, for her essay “Another Contest of Regina has been awarded the Won,” about Laura Zehender of the online mathematics 2016 PIMS Education Prize of the school Art of Problem Solving (AoPS). Pacific Institute for the Mathemati- cal Sciences. According to the prize —From an AWM announcement citation, Maidorn is “very active in mathematics education and out- reach. As well as his role in organiz- ing math camps and school visits, he has brought the international USA Mathematical Olympiad Patrick Maidorn Mathematical Kangaroo contest to The 2016 USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) was held Regina and played a key role in April 19–20, 2016. The students who participated in the its organization. He is also a lead exam writer for the Olympiad were selected on the basis of their performances Saskatchewan Math Challenge.” He also takes part in the on the American High School and American Invitational

826 Notices of the AMS Volume 63, Number 7 Mathematics People

Mathematics Examinations. The twelve highest scorers in Eric Salisbury. They were coached by Michael McNamara. this year’s AMO, listed in alphabetical order, were: The team from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Ankan Bhattacharya, Lawrence Technological Univer- Spring, Maryland, consisted of Raymond Lin, Ethan Hol- sity, Southfield, Michigan land, Victoria Tsai, Jamie Vinson, and Eshan Tewari. Ruidi Cao, Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics, They were coached by William Rose. A team from North and Computing, Maryville, Missouri Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, Hongyi Chen, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado North Carolina, consisted of Simon Marland, Vinit Ran- Jacob Klegar, Choate-Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, Con- jan, Katherine Yang, Sunwoo Yim, and Kelly Zhang. necticut Their coach was Dan Teague. James Lin, Winchester High School, Winchester, Massa- The Mega Math Challenge invites teams of high school chusetts juniors and seniors to solve an open-ended, realistic, chal- Allen Liu, Penfield Senior High School, Penfield, New York lenging modeling problem focused on real-world issues. Junyao Peng, Princeton International School of Mathemat- The top five teams receive awards ranging from US$5,000 ics and Science, Princeton, New Jersey to US$20,000 in scholarship money. The competition is Kevin Ren, Torrey Pines High School, San Diego, California sponsored by the Moody’s Foundation, a charitable foun- Mihir Singhl, Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, California dation established by Moody’s Corporation, and organized Kevin Sun, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hamp- by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics shire (SIAM). Alec Sun, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hamp- shire —From a Moody’s Foundation/SIAM announcement Yuan Yao, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hamp- shire The twelve USAMO winners will attend the Mathemati- NCTM Lifetime Achievement cal Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP) at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, in June 2016. Ten of the twelve will take Awards the team selection test to qualify for the US team. The six The National Council of Teachers students with the highest combined scores from the test of Mathematics (NCTM) has chosen and the USAMO will become members of the US team and two educators to receive Lifetime will compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad Achievement Awards for 2016. They (IMO) to be held in Hong Kong in July 2016. are Edwin Dickey of the University of South Carolina and Barbara –From Mathematical Association Reys of the University of Missouri. of America announcements According to the prize citations, Dickey’s “career has been spent encouraging students to become Moody’s Mega Math Challenge STEM teachers, implementing in- Edwin Dickey structional technology to facilitate The winners of the 2016 Mega Math Challenge for high learning, and leveraging his abilities school students have been announced. The topic for this to contribute to a multitude of pro- year was “Modeling New Approaches to Mobility.” fessional organizations” and “has The Champion Team Prize of US$20,000 in scholarship demonstrated an enduring commit- money was awarded to a team from Saint John’s School ment to the professional growth of in Houston, Texas. The team members were Margaret his students, colleagues, and teach- Trautner, Eric Gao, Anirudh Suresh, Daniel Shebib, ers.” He “has always been intrigued and Nancy Cheng. Their coach was Dwight Raulston. by the intersection of mathematics The First Runner-Up Team Prize of US$15,000 in and technology. He was fascinated scholarship money was awarded to a team from Carmel by the mechanical calculator that Barbara Reys High School in Carmel, Indiana. The team members were his high school teacher had brought Simon Langowski, Miles Dai, Joseph Philleo, and Tiger into the classroom and later, as Huang. Their coach was Peter Beck. teacher himself, purchased his school’s first Apple II The Third Place Team Prize of US$10,000 in scholarship computer. Dickey was motivated by the opportunities af- money was awarded to a team from Governor Livingston forded by technology to improve mathematics education.” High School in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. The team He has presented conference papers in thirteen different members were Niyant Narang, Gianna Miggins, Mi- countries, “demonstrating his commitment to sharing his chael Wu, Anna Song, and Alexander Ju. Their coach expertise with the international community.” Dickey is a was Steven Hess. native of Brazil and was educated in US Dependent Schools Finalist Team Prizes of US$5,000 in scholarship money in Europe. The father of two grown children, he and his were awarded to three teams. The team from La Salle Acad- wife, Karen, enjoy traveling, cooking, and eclectic dining emy in Providence, Rhode Island, consisted of Allison often while visiting family and friends around the world. Paul, Joshua Reno, Eileen Phou, Audrey Cryan, and Dickey told the Notices: “I failed kindergarten. When I

August 2016 Notices of the AMS 827 Mathematics People arrived in the US from Brazil, my year in kindergarten… was not recognized and I was required to repeat the grade, 2016 Royal Society Elections this time in English. What better foundation for life than The following mathematical scientists have been elected have two years of kindergarten in two different languages.” Fellows of the Royal Society of for the year 2016: He also says “in mathematics and in life, we all experience , University of failures and it is from those failures along with some suc- , cesses that we realize ourselves and our contributions.” , University of Oxford and National Reys’ “early experience teaching mathematics at every grade, from grade 1 to high school, grounded her later University of Singapore work in teacher preparation and instilled in her a great Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, Harvard University respect for the hard work of classroom teachers…. She , University of Warwick was the founder of the University of Missouri Mathemat- Elected as a Foreign Member was , Max ics Teacher Organization (UM2TO—one of the first NCTM Planck Institute for Mathematics. Student Affiliates). She and her husband [Robert Reys] also founded the STaR Program—an early-career induction —From a Royal Society announcement program for mathematics educators working in higher education.” Furthermore, “she chaired the commission that developed standards for the preparation of elemen- David D. Bleecker (1948–2016) tary mathematics specialists and created a program in Missouri to certify EMS professionals on the basis of these David Bleecker was born in Sum- standards.” She has been instrumental in efforts to help mit, New Jersey, in 1948. He re- schools implement innovative curriculum materials and ceived his PhD from the University in advocating for a common set of curriculum standards of California at Berkeley under across states. She also directed the Center for the Study Shiing-Shen Chern in 1973 and of Mathematics Curriculum, a partnership between the spent his career at the University University of Missouri and the Columbia Public Schools. of Hawaii. Chern praised the rigor Reys is one of nine children, all of whom live in central of Bleecker’s exposition and his Missouri. Her first grandchild was born one month after perspicuous writings. her retirement from the University of Missouri. Bleecker was as a mathemati- David Bleecker —From an NCTM announcement cian distinctive in his painstaking precision and thoroughness, which was accompanied by an almost religious fervor about the possibility of explain- National Academy of Sciences ing even the most intricate mathematical constructions to colleagues and students. Young learners could grasp Elections basic ideas of geometric analysis from his article on the optimal bending of a flat taco to yield maximal filling, The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has elected its new members and foreign associates for 2016. Following which gained him, jointly with Lawrence J. Wallen, the are the new members whose work involves the mathemati- George Pólya Award of the Mathematical Association of cal sciences: America in 1999. According to David, everyone interested Ian Agol, University of California Berkeley in modern physics should be able to understand the Constantine M. Dafermos, Brown University underlying variational principles. So David wrote a very Vladimir Drinfeld, successful monograph, Gauge Theory and Variational Steven N. Evans, University of California Berkeley Principles (Addison-Wesley 1981, Dover 2005). Jointly with Igor R. Klebanov, George Csordas he wrote an almost encyclopedic rigorous , Stanford University introduction, Basic partial differential equations (Van Nos- Susan A. Murphy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor trand 1992). In the same vein, the thin atmosphere of the Larry A. Wasserman, Carnegie Mellon University heights of the Atiyah-Singer index theory and its meaning Alexander B. Zamolodchikov, Russian Academy of in gauge-theoretic physics and low-dimensional geometry Sciences and Rutgers, The State University of New were made breathable and enjoyable for a wider circle of Jersey readers in joint work with Bernhelm Booss-Bavnbek in the Elected as foreign associates were: monumental Index Theory with Applications in Mathemat- Yuval Perez, Microsoft Research Hugh Possingham, University of Queensland ics and Physics (International Press 2013). Nancy M. Reid, University of Toronto Due to health issues, David retired in 2010. We can only Claire Voisin, CNRS, Institut de Mathématiques de imagine what he would have accomplished with more time. Jussieu, France —Bernhelm Booss-Bavnbek (Roskilde, Denmark) —From an NAS announcement and George Csordas (Hawaii, USA)

828 Notices of the AMS Volume 63, Number 7 Mathematics People

of gold by an uncanny, almost mystical intuition, reminis- Between the Lines, Horst Elmar cent of the great .

Winkelnkemper (1940–2016) —, professor of mathematics, Horst Elmar Win- State University of New York, Stony Brook kelnkemper was born and Einstein Chair, CUNY Graduate Center in and grew [email protected] up in Mexico. He at- tracted the attention Credits of Solomon Lefschetz Photo of Omer Angel, courtesy of David Tsabar. and entered graduate Photo of Hendrik Weber, courtesy of Annette Anderson. school at Princeton in Photo of Elisenda Grigsby, courtesy of Puneet Batra. the early 1960s. Elmar Photo of Daniel Krashen, courtesy of Max S. Gerber. tried to understand the Photo of Daniella M. Witten, courtesy of Ari Steinberg. Photo of Ed Dickey, courtesy of Rick Smoak. robust activity of Bill Winkelnkemper in his office in Photo of Barbara Reys, courtesy of T. Brown. Browder’s school at his early days at the University Photo of David D. Bleecker, courtesy of Dale Myers the time: constructing of Maryland. Photo of Horst Elmar Winkelnkemper, courtesy of Jack and controlling closed Calcut. manifolds above dimension four via geometric construc- tions called surgery. Elmar formulated mantras such as, “A manifold is like a quadratic form,” and “Transversality unlocks the secrets of the manifold.” When these mantras were expressed in lectures at MIT, Is Singer thought “Win- kelnkemper” was an invented author of these mathemati- cal insights. A first result of Elmar was that if the signature of its quadratic form were nonzero, then the degree of a self mapping of a manifold must be a perfect square. Later his showed that the cobordism groups of manifolds with self diffeomorphisms had infinitely many linearly independent invariants. Elmar then used diffeomorphisms of manifolds with boundary which are the identity on the boundary to describe “Open Book” decompositions of AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY closed manifolds of one dimension higher. Elmar and Bill Thurston used open book decompositions to show that each three-manifold has a contact structure. In the next Mathematical Circles Library period Giroux showed that all contact structures in dimen- sion three are approximated by Elmar’s open books. One may speculate that a signed version of this approximation Mathematical Circles are gatherings of motivated students result could provide a picture of the moving vorticity of and teachers looking for new challenges in mathematics as well as a deeper understanding of the subject. While solving three-dimensional fluid, a currently intractable problem. problems is emphasized, the circles pay considerable Elmar’s “Graph of a Foliation” clarified the holonomy attention to mathematical ideas and techniques. structure of foliations, allowing noncommutative geom- This book series is designed as a resource for leaders and etry to enter that area. participants in mathematical clubs and circles. Books may also be of interest to parents and teachers. In recent work, Elmar defied the logic result that many questions about finitely presented groups are undecidable. He showed that each positive definite symmetric integer matrix with determinant one which is not equivalent over the integers to the identity matrix determines an Artin pre- sentation of a nontrivial perfect group. The proof is a re- markable combination. Elmar constructs a four-manifold whose boundary would be a homotopy three-sphere if the group were trivial. This four-manifold, materializing the quadratic form, is impossible by Taubes’ augmentation of bookstore.ams.org/MCL Donaldson’s theory of . Elmar felt strongly the depth of these connections. facebook.com/amermathsoc To many Elmar Winkelnkemper passionately shared @amermathsoc deep convictions and intuition even in areas outside his (800)321-4267 (U.S. & Canada), plus.google.com/+AmsOrg expertise, and it seemed to this author he could find veins (401)455-4000 (Worldwide)

August 2016 Notices of the AMS 829