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Assaf Naor was born in 1975 in Rehovot, Israel. He Naor Awarded received his PhD in from the Hebrew Univer- sity of Jerusalem in 2002 under the supervision of Joram Ostrowski Prize Lindenstrauss. He held positions at Microsoft Research, Assaf Naor of Princeton University the University of Washington, and the Courant Institute of has been awarded the 2019 Ostrowski Mathematical Sciences before joining the faculty of Prince- Prize “for his groundbreaking work in ton University in 2014. His honors include the European areas in the meeting point of the ge- Mathematical Society Prize (2008), the Salem Prize (2008), ometry of Banach spaces, the structure the Bôcher Memorial Prize (2011), and the Nemmers Prize of metric spaces, and algorithms.” The (2018). He is a Fellow of the AMS. He gave an invited ad- prize citation reads in part: “The na- dress at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians. ture of his contribution is threefold: The Ostrowski Prize is awarded in odd-numbered years Solutions of hard problems, setting for outstanding achievement in pure mathematics and the foundations of numerical mathematics. It carries a cash Assaf Naor a significant research direction for himself and others to follow, and award of 100,000 Swiss francs (approximately US$100,300). finding deep connections between pure mathematics and —Helmut Harbrecht, Universität Basel computer science. “Since the mid-nineties, geometric methods have played an influential role toward designing algorithms for com- Pham Awarded 2019 putational problems that a priori have little connection . to geometry. Assaf Naor is the world leader on this topic, ICTP-IMU Ramanujan Prize building a long-term, cohesive research program. He has discovered and applied deep results from the theory of Hoàng Hiê.p Pha.m of the Institute Banach spaces and quantitative metric geometry to solve of Mathematics, Vietnam Academy long-standing algorithmic questions and, in turn, has solved of Science and Technology, has been long-standing questions in analysis via techniques that are awarded the 2019 ICTP-IMU Ra- sometimes motivated by algorithmic applications. This has manujan Prize, given by the Interna- often led to development of new theories, e.g., the nonlinear tional Centre for Theoretical Physics spectral calculus and understanding of the geometry of the (ICTP), the International Mathemat- Heisenberg group. ical Union (IMU), and the govern- “One particular focus of his research is on computing ment of India. the ‘sparsest cut’ in graphs, i.e., to cut an n-vertex graph Hoàng Hiê.p Pha.m The prize citation reads: “The prize into two parts such that the number of edges across the is in recognition of his outstanding two parts is minimized while requiring the two parts to be contributions to the field of complex analysis, and in ‘balanced.’ This is an NP-hard problem, so the goal is to particular to pluripotential theory, where he obtained an compute an approximate sparse cut. A specific algorithm important result on the singularities of plurisubharmonic is based on linear programming relaxation. Its approxima- functions; complex Monge-Ampère equations and log ca- tion factor is the same as the distortion needed to embed a nonical thresholds, which have important applications in corresponding class of n-point metrics into L1. Assaf Naor algebraic and complex Kähler geometry. The prize is also in proved that a ball of radius n in the Heisenberg group does recognition of Dr. Pham’s important organizational role in not Lipschitz embed into L1 with distortion better than the advancement of mathematics in his home country, Viet- √log n. As a consequence, the semidefinite program for the nam.” The selection committee consisted of Alicia Dicken- sparsest cut problem on inputs of size n is at least of order stein (University of Buenos Aires), Lothar Goettsche (ICTP, √log n, matching the known upper bound.” chair), Kapil Hari Paranjape (Indian Institute of Science

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Education and Research, Mohali), Philibert Nang (École Normale Supérieure Libreville, Gabon), and Van Vu (Yale Jitomirskaya Awarded University). The prize is awarded annually to a researcher from a developing country who is less than forty-five years Heineman Prize of age on December 31 of the year of the award and who Svetlana Jitomirskaya of the Uni- has conducted outstanding research in a developing country. versity of California, Irvine, has been —From an ICTP-IMU announcement awarded the 2020 Dannie Heineman Prize for “for work on the spectral theory of almost Plan Awarded periodic Schrödinger operators and related questions in dynamical sys- Aisenstadt Prize tems—in particular, for her role in the solution of the Ten Martini prob- Yaniv Plan of the University of Brit- Svetlana lem, concerning the Cantor set nature ish Columbia has been awarded the Jitomirskaya of the spectrum of all almost Mathieu 2019 André Aisenstadt Prize in Math- operators and in the development of the fundamental ematics by the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM). According mathematical aspects of the localization and metal-insula- to the citation, his research “is in the tor transition phenomena.” According to the citation, her general area of mathematics of in- “main accomplishments are in the area of quasiperiodic formation that interacts with various operators, where she is best known for developing the first fields, including high-dimensional nonperturbative methods of study of small denominators, Yaniv Plan data analysis, machine learning, har- that have influenced the future development of this field. monic analysis, probability, signal She has also been involved, by herself and with collabo- processing, and information theory.” His contributions rators, in the solution of several long-standing problems include a theory of compressed sensing, low-rank ma- related to the almost Mathieu operators, also known as trix completion, one-bit compressed sensing, and high- Harper’s, Aubry-Andre, or Azbel-Hofstadter model.” Jit- dimensional data analysis. He delivered the Aisenstadt omirskaya received her PhD in 1991 from Moscow State Prize Lecture, “The Role of Random Models in Compressive University. She became a lecturer at UC Irvine in 1991 and Sensing and Matrix Completion,” at CRM in November is currently Distinguished Professor of Mathematics. She 2019. Plan obtained his PhD from the California Institute received the AMS Satter Prize in 2005. She has been a re- of Technology in 2011 under the supervision of Emmanuel cipient of Sloan and Simons Foundation Fellowships and Candès. He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow (2011–14) and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. was on the faculty of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Jitomirskaya tells the Notices: “My mother was a prominent before joining the University of British Columbia. He was mathematician, yet she actively discouraged me from going the recipient of an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral into math, saying, in particular, ‘it’s not a good job for a girl.’ Research Fellowship in 2011, and he received the Faculty I ended up following her example rather than her advice, Award of the UBC Mathematics and Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences in 2016. In his free time, Plan and haven’t regretted it. This is a job that has allowed me enjoys fantasy role-playing games with his children and to spend a lot of time with each of my three children, while likes to wrestle with them. He enjoys swing music and continuing to grow in my work.” once performed on a swing dance team. His favorite sport The Heineman Prize is awarded annually by the Amer- is basketball, which he plays regularly. ican Institute of Physics (AIP) and the American Physical The Aisenstadt Prize recognizes outstanding research by Society (APS) in recognition of outstanding publications in a young Canadian mathematician. mathematical physics. It carries a cash award of US$10,000.

—From a CRM announcement —From an AIP-APS announcement

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tics. He is currently Swiss National Science Foundation Gomis Receives (SNF) Ambizione Fellow at ETH Zurich. The prize honors the memory of renowned Spanish analyst J. L. Rubio de CAP/CRM Prize Francia and is awarded annually to a mathematician from Jaume Gomis of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Spain or who has received a PhD from a university in Spain, Physics and the University of Waterloo has been awarded and who is at most thirty-two years of age, for high-caliber the 2019 CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathemat- contributions to any area of pure or applied mathematics. ical Physics. Gomis was recognized “for his broad range The prize committee consisted of Pavel Exner, Charles Fef- of important contributions to string theory and strongly ferman, Regina Liu, Rosa Maria Miró-Roig, María Pe Pereira, coupled gauge theories, including the pioneering use of and Francisco Santos Leal (chair). nonlocal observables, the exact computation of physical quantities in quantum field theory, and the unraveling —Alvaro Pelayo, University of California, San Diego of the nonperturbative dynamics of gauge theories.” The citation continues: “Over the last 15 years, Dr. Gomis has pioneered novel methods for exploring strongly coupled Hrushovski Awarded gauge theories through nonlocal variables, and by studying these theories in curved spacetime. This has allowed him to Hopf Prize generate physical insights into these theories and to carry Ehud Hrushovski of the University out first-of-their-kind exact computations for key observ- of Oxford and the Hebrew Univer- ables in quantum field theory. The computational tools Dr. sity of Jerusalem has been awarded Gomis has developed in pursuit of this research have also the 2019 Heinz Hopf Prize “for his found applications in various areas of pure mathematics, outstanding contributions to model including enumerative geometry, differential geometry, and theory and their application to alge- mirror symmetry. His ongoing work continues to open new bra and geometry.” He gave the Heinz frontiers that will fuel new discoveries in theoretical and Hopf Lectures on “Logic and Geome- mathematical physics for years to come.” try: The of Finite Fields The prize is awarded by the Canadian Association of and Difference Fields” in October Physicists (CAP) and the Centre de Recherches Mathéma- Ehud Hrushovski 2019. Hrushovski received his PhD in tiques (CRM) and recognizes exceptional achievements in 1986 from the University of California, Berkeley, under the theoretical and mathematical physics. direction of . He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Israel Academy of —From a CAP-CRM announcement Sciences and Humanities. He received the Karp Prize of the Association for Symbolic Logic in 1993 (with ) Serra Awarded Rubio and was honored with the prize again in 1998. He was also awarded the Erdo˝s Prize of the Israel Mathematical Union de Francia Prize (1994) and the Rothschild Prize (1998). He has been an invited speaker (1990) and a plenary speaker (1998) at In- Joaquim Serra of ETH Zürich has ternational Congresses of Mathematicians. Hrushovski tells been awarded the 2018 Rubio de the Notices: “I think best when running in the outdoors. My Francia Prize of the Royal Spanish maternal grandparents came from a similar German-Jewish Mathematical Society (RSME) “for milieu to Heinz Hopf. My grandmother was born, like him, important contributions to analysis in a suburb of today’s Wrocław; my grandfather, like him, and partial differential equations, was a student at Breslau University, was wounded in the including his work on nonlinear First World War, and discharged in 1918 with an Iron Cross. integro-differential equations, regu- They were separated by a few years of age, and I assume larity for minimal surfaces, and free they never met.” Joaquim Serra boundary regularity in the obstacle The Heinz Hopf Prize is awarded every two years for problem.” Serra received his PhD in outstanding scientific achievements in the field of pure 2014 from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC mathematics. Barcelona) under the direction of Xavier Cabré, and his col- laborators have included Luis Caffarelli and Alessio Figalli. —From a Hopf Prize announcement He has held postdoctoral positions at UPC Barcelona and the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochas-

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Cultural Prize in 2016, and the Joachim Herz Foundation Logunov Receives 2019 Hamburg Prize in 2018.

Packard Fellowship —Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe Aleksandr Logunov of Princeton University has been awarded a 2019 2019 NSF CAREER Awards Packard Fellowship by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The The National Science Foundation (NSF) has named a num- citation reads, “In the nineteenth ber of recipients of 2019 Faculty Early Career Development century Napoleon set a prize for the (CAREER) Awards. The awards support early-career faculty best mathematical explanation of members who have the potential to serve as academic role Chladni’s resonance experiments. models in research and education and to lead advances in Nodal geometry studies the zeroes of the mission of their departments or organizations. Follow- Aleksandr Logunov solutions of elliptic differential equa- ing are the names, institutions, and proposal titles of the tions such as the visible curves that awardees selected by the NSF Division of Mathematical appear in these physical experiments. Logunov’s research Sciences (DMS). focuses on problems in nodal geometry, harmonic analysis, •• Benjamin Bakker, University of Georgia: Hodge theory partial differential equations and geometrical analysis.” and moduli Logunov received his PhD from St. Petersburg State Uni- •• Melody Chan, Brown University: Algebraic curves and versity in 2015 under the supervision of Viktor Havin. After their moduli: Degenerations and combinatorics two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University, •• Hao Chen, University of California, Davis: New change- he joined the faculty at Princeton. In 2017 he received the point problems in analyzing high-dimensional and Clay Research Award, jointly with Eugenia Malinnikova, non-Euclidean data for their introduction of novel geometric-combinatorial •• Tamas Darvas, University of Maryland, College Park: methods for the study of elliptic eigenvalue problems. He Geometric potential theory received a Clay Research Fellowship for the years 2018–20 •• Chao Gao, University of Chicago: Computational and and was an invited speaker at the International Congress theoretical investigations of variational inference of Mathematicians in 2018. He was awarded the Salem •• Paul Hand, Northeastern University: Signal recovery Prize in 2018. from generative priors Packard Fellows receive US$875,000 over five years to •• Matthew Hirn, Michigan State University: Understand- pursue their research. The Fellowships are designed to allow ing invariant convolutional neural networks through maximum flexibility in how the funding is used. many particle physics •• Wei Ho, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: Theory, —From a Packard Foundation announcement heuristics, and data for arithmetic invariants •• Mihaela Ifrim, University of Wisconsin, Madison: Qua- silinear dispersive evolutions in fluid dynamics Ooguri Awarded Medal •• Pierre Jacob, Harvard University: Unbiased estimation with faithful Markov chains for scalable statistical in- of Honor of Japan ference •• Adel Javanmard, University of Southern California: Hirosi Ooguri of the University of Tokyo and the California Valid and scalable inference for high-dimensional sta- Institute of Technology has been awarded a Medal of Honor tistical models with Purple Ribbon by the emperor of Japan, which recog- •• Benjamin Jaye, Clemson University: Analysis of opera- nizes “individuals who have contributed to academic and tors on rough sets artistic discoveries, inventions, and innovations.” Ooguri •• Ilya Kachkovskiy, Michigan State University: Quantum was honored for “his many accomplishments and contri- systems with deterministic disorder butions to science.” He is director of the Kavli Institute for •• Karin Leiderman, Colorado School of Mines: Math- the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the Uni- ematical modeling to identify new regulatory mecha- versity of Tokyo and the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical nisms of blood clotting Physics and Mathematics at Caltech. He received his doctor •• Xiaodong Li, University of California, Davis: Statistical of science degree from the University of Tokyo in 1989. analysis of nonconvex optimization in unsupervised He is a Fellow of the AMS and the American Academy of learning Arts and Sciences. His honors include the AMS Eisenbud Prize for Mathematics and Physics in 2008, the Chunichi

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•• Xingjie Li, University of North Carolina at Charlotte: A •• Molei Tao, Georgia Institute of Technology: Multiscale multiscale framework for crystalline defects in 2-dimen- control of mechanical systems: Theory, computation sional materials and applications •• Baiying Liu, Purdue University: Automorphic forms and •• Hung Tran, University of Wisconsin, Madison: Front the Langlands program propagations and viscosity solutions •• Yifei Lou, University of Texas at Dallas: Mathematical •• Thomas Trogdon, University of Washington: Numerical modeling from data to insights and beyond linear algebra, random matrix theory and applications •• Sara Maloni, University of Virginia: Geometric struc- •• Li Wang, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities: Com- tures, character varieties, and higher Teichmüller theory putational methods for multiscale kinetic systems: •• Kathryn Mann, Cornell University: Geometric and topo- Uncertainty, non-locality, and variational formulation •• Yi Wang, Johns Hopkins University: Conformal geom- logical approaches to group actions in low dimensions etry and Monge-Ampère type equations •• Kevin McGoff, University of North Carolina at Char- •• Zhenqi Wang, Michigan State University: New methods lotte: Stochastic forward and inverse problems involving and applications for smooth rigidity of algebraic actions dynamical systems •• Melanie Wood, University of California, Berkeley: Ran- • • Karola Meszaros, Cornell University: Integer point domness in number theory and beyond transforms of polytopes •• Yao Yao, Georgia Institute of Technology: Transport •• Oleksii Mostovyi, University of Connecticut: An ap- equations in fluids and biology: Singularity, dynamics, proach to pricing, hedging, stability, and asymptotic and analysis in financial markets •• Inna Zakharevich, Cornell University: Constructing •• Ronen Mukamel, William Marsh Rice University: To- K-theoretic invariants for geometric objects tally geodesic varieties in moduli space: Arithmetic and •• Ting Zhang, Boston University: Statistical inference of classification tail dependent time series •• Akil Narayan, University of Utah: Optimal approxima- tion algorithms in high dimensions —National Science Foundation •• Andrei Negut, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Credits Higher enumerative geometry via representation theory Photo of Assaf Naor is courtesy of The Simons Foundation. and mathematical physics Photo of Aleksandr Logunov is courtesy of Clay Math •• Sigal Nitzan, Georgia Institute of Technology: Bases in Institute. Hilbert function spaces and some of their applications Photo of Svetlana Jitomirskaya is courtesy of UCI Physical •• Megan Owen, Lehman College, City University of New Sciences Communications. York: Statistical and geometric analysis for tree-shaped data •• David Papp, North Carolina State University: Large-scale optimization problems with applications in emerging radiotherapy modalities •• William Perkins, University of Illinois at Chicago: Phase transitions in algorithms, , and geometry •• Leif Ristroph, New York University: Mathematical mod- eling, physical experiments, and biological data for un- derstanding flow interactions in collective locomotion •• Arvind Saibaba, North Carolina State University: Fast and accurate algorithms for uncertainty quantification in large-scale inverse problems •• Benjamin Shaby, Colorado State University: Hierarchi- cal models for spatial extremes •• Pierre Simon, University of California, Berkeley: Model theory and homogeneous structures •• Weijie Su, University of Pennsylvania: A statistical infer- ential framework for online learning algorithms •• Nike Sun, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Phase transitions in randomized combinatorial search and optimization problems

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