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computation, communication, program testing, and DNA Tao Awarded Royal Medal computing. of the Uni- According to the prize citation, “Together with ACM versity of California Los A. M. Turing Award winner Robert Tarjan, Lipton devel- Angeles has been awarded oped the planar separator theorem. It shows that a small number of intersections can be efficiently found in any the 2014 Royal Medal for road network, which, when removed, will split the network Physical Sciences by the into disconnected pieces of at most half its original size. Royal Society of London This operation facilitates a very efficient ‘divide and con- “for his many contribu- quer’ approach to solving problems on such networks by tions to math, including breaking down a problem into two or more subproblems those in harmonic analysis, of the same or related type. theory, par- “Lipton pioneered the design of algorithms that make tial differential equations, random choices in order to solve computational problems, combinatorics, computer particularly as a way to test programs. He confronted the science, statistics, repre- Kyle Alexander ‘chicken and egg’ problem that can occur when building © sentation theory, and much software designed to solve a complex problem: how to more”. Terence Tao check the answers that a program produces without a Tao was awarded the way to compute the correct answers. In solving complex in 2006 and a worth US$3 algebraic problems, Lipton showed that it was sufficient to million in 2014. Among his many honors and awards are check a program by running it against itself on randomly the Salem Prize (2000), the AMS Bˆocher Prize (2002) and chosen but related inputs and comparing the results for Conant Award (2005), the (2003), consistency. the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize (2006), the Ostrowski Prize “Working with another ACM Turing Award recipient, Richard Karp, Lipton developed a fundamental theorem (2007), the National Science Foundation Waterman Award in circuit complexity. It demonstrated that NP-complete (2008), the King Faisal International Prize (2010), and a problems are unlikely to be efficiently solved by the best MacArthur Fellowship (2007–2011). of algorithms even when given specially designed hard- The Royal Society, based in London and founded in ware. This critically important class of problems in com- 1660, is the oldest scientific academy in continuous exis- putational complexity is the subject of intensive research. tence. The organization awards three Royal Medals each A purely algorithmic solution to this problem has long year in the physical, biological, and applied sciences. been the holy grail of computer science and is the object of a million-dollar challenge from the Clay Mathematics —Elaine Kehoe Institute. “Lipton was an early developer of communication com- plexity, the study of the number of bits of communication Lipton Awarded Knuth Prize needed for agents to solve computational tasks. He and his coauthors developed a multiparty version based on Richard J. Lipton of the Georgia Institute of Technol- analogues of ‘hat puzzles’ in recreational mathematics. ogy has been named the recipient of the 2014 Donald E. This work showed its relevance for understanding the Knuth Prize for inventing new computer science and math- complexity of computations and gave surprising solutions ematical techniques to tackle foundational and practical to the problems that arise. Lipton is also one of the original problems in a wide range of areas in graph algorithms, pioneers in DNA computing, which uses the combination

62 Notices of the AMS January 2015 Mathematics People and replication of the vast numbers of DNA strands that program’s sole director from 1998 to 2009. She has made fit in a test tube as a basis for parallel computation.” numerous contributions to mathematics education as an The Knuth Prize, named in honor of Donald E. Knuth of AMS/MAA/SIAM Congressional Science Fellow, as chair , is given every eighteen months by the of the MAA’s Science Policy Committee, and as a member Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Inter- of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics est Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) (SIAM) Science Policy Committee and the MAA Commit- and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers tee on Minority Participation in Mathematics. She has also (IEEE) Technical Committee on the Mathematical Founda- served as an associate program director for the Teacher tions of Computing. It carries a cash award of US$5,000. Enhancement Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). She received her PhD from . The —From an ACM announcement Louise Hay Award recognizes outstanding achievements in any area of mathematics education. Ruth Haas of Smith College has been selected as the Mirzakhani recipient of the AWM M. Gweneth Humphreys Award. According to the prize citation, Haas “has nurtured and and Scholze supported a generation of women mathematics students at Smith. An impressive alumnae body attests enthusias- Receive Clay tially to the crucial role Haas played in their decision to major in mathematics, attend graduate school, and ulti- Research mately pursue careers in the mathematical sciences.” She Awards was instrumental in establishing the Center for Women in Mathematics and the postbaccalaureate program at Smith, as well as an undergraduate research course, the annual of Stanford University Women in Mathematics in the Northeast conference, and and of other programs. The award recognizes the commitment to the University of Bonn and influence of M. Gweneth Humphreys on undergradu- have been selected to ate students of mathematics. receive 2014 Clay Re-

search Awards by the Archives of the Mathematisches —From AWM announcements Clay Mathematics Insti- © Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach tute (CMI). Maryam Mirzakhani Mirzakhani was recog- Godin Receives 2014 CMS nized for her many and significant contributions to ge- ometry and , in particular to the proof of Graham Wright Award an analogue of Ratner’s theorem on unipotent flows for Shawn Godin of Cairine Wilson Secondary School, Ottawa, moduli of flat surfaces. She was awarded a Fields Medal Ontario, has been named the recipient of the 2014 Graham this year. Wright Award for Distinguished Service by the Canadian Scholze was honored for his many and significant Mathematical Society (CMS). Godin has contributed to contributions to arithmetic algebraic geometry, particu- provincial tests, served as a mathematics consultant, larly in the development and applications of the theory written and reviewed district-wide exams, and consulted of perfectoid spaces. He was appointed a Clay Research on math texts. Working with universities, he helped es- Fellow for a term of five years in 2011 and received the tablish university and high school dialogues and to craft 2013 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. mathematics competitions and math camps. He has also The CMI presents Clay Research Awards annually to worked with the Ontario Ministry of Education to create recognize major breakthroughs in mathematical research. technology-based activities and provide support materials

for students and teachers implementing changes to the —From a CMI announcement mathematics syllabus. The Graham Wright Award for Distinguished Service is presented annually to an individual who has made AWM Hay and Humphreys significant contributions to the Canadian mathematics community and in particular the CMS. Awards Announced T. Christine Stevens, associate executive director of the —From a CMS announcement AMS and formerly of St. Louis University, has been chosen the recipient of the Louise Hay Award of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). She was cofounder and Thamwattana Awarded 2014 codirector (with James R. C. Leitzel) of Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching), a program of the Mathematical Michell Medal Association of America (MAA) that helps new faculty mem- Ngamta (Natalie) Thamwattana of University of Wol- bers transition into full-time teaching. She served as the longong has been awarded the 2014 J. H. Michell Medal of

Volume 62, Number 1 Notices of the AMS 63 Mathematics People the Australian Mathematical Society for work that involves on the NCTM Board of Directors, was a member of the the interaction of atomic and molecular nanostructures, first Commission on Standards for School Mathemat- producing accurate and simply expressed analytical ics, and chaired the grades 9–12 working group for the results for calculations that had previously been NCTM’s Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School attempted only by numerical methods. The award is given Mathematics (1989). He was editor of the 1985 Yearbook for distinguished research in applied and/or industrial and the Addenda Series for grades 9–12 and was general mathematics, with a significant proportion of the research editor of the 1990–1992 Yearbooks. He edited several ad- work having been carried out in Australia and/or New ditional NCTM publications and wrote numerous articles Zealand. appearing in the NCTM journals and those of other pro- fessional organizations. He served as a referee for both —From an ANZIAM announcement research and professional practice journals within and outside NCTM, chaired the NCTM review group for Col- lege Board Standards for Success in College Mathematics NCTM Lifetime Achievement and Statistics, and was both a member and chair of the Education Materials Committee. Awards —From NCTM announcements The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has presented Mathematics Education Trust (MET) Lifetime Achievement Awards for Distinguished Service to Math- ematics Education to Miriam A. Leiva, University of North Pi Mu Epsilon Student Paper Carolina, Charlotte, and Christian R. Hirsch, Western Presentation Awards Michigan University. Leiva was the founding president of TODOS: Mathematics for All. According to the prize cita- Pi Mu Epsilon (PME), the US honorary mathematics soci- tion, “she has been an avid, persuasive spokesperson on ety, makes annual awards to recognize the best papers issues that affect the mathematics achievement of all stu- by undergraduate students presented at a PME student dents and in particular of Latino/a students in the United paper session. PME held a session in conjunction with States. She is recognized as that rare person who makes the Mathematical Association of America MathFest held everyone consider the disparities that exist in mathematics July 31–August 3, 2014, in Hartford, Connecticut. The education for underrepresented, underserved students, AMS and the American Statistical Association sponsor and through her leadership, she has provided a call to awards to student speakers for excellence in exposition action and reform of that environment. That mission—the and research. Each awardee received a check for US$150. mission of TODOS—still remains at the forefront of her The names, institutions, and paper titles of the award- leadership efforts today.” She has been a member of the winning students follow. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education editorial Marcus Elia, State University of New York, Geneseo, panel and of the Research Advisory Committee and the “The Collatz conjecture”; Marissa Hartzheim, St. Norbert Nominations and Elections Committee of the NCTM. She College, “A particular polarity, part I”; Taylor Miller, has served on the NCTM Principles to Actions author com- St. Norbert College, “A particular polarity, part II”; Crys- mittee, with particular emphasis on equity. She has been a tal Mackey, Youngstown State University, “Factoriza- member of the NCTM Board of Directors. Other honors she tion theory of numerical monoids”; Jonathan Marino, has received include the Ross Taylor/Glenn Gilbert Memo- Roanoke College, “Integer compositions applied to the rial Award for Excellence in Mathematics Education from probability analysis of blackjack and infinite deck as- the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, the sumption”; Robert Lehr, Southwestern University, Iris Carl Equity and Leadership Award from TODOS, the “An irrational decomposition of generalized Fibonacci North Carolina Diamante Award for contributions to the numbers”; Samantha Parsons, Roanoke College, “Pro- Hispanic/Latino community in the state, and the Rankin tecting confidentiality and scientific integrity through Award, which recognizes and honors individuals for their synthetic data and mediator servers”; Matthew Buhr, outstanding contributions to the North Carolina Council University of South Dakota, “The flour beetle: A discrete of Teachers of Mathematics (NCCTM) and to mathematics mathematical model”; Max Goering, Kansas State Uni- education in North Carolina. versity, “Modulus of families of walks on graphs”; Daniel Hirsch “was the driving force behind the Core-Plus Miller, Texas A&M University, “Data-driven forecasting Mathematics Project (CPMP), which, with support from the of available and required energy for a solar water heating National Science Foundation, developed a research-based system”; Heather Gronewald, Southwestern University, high school curriculum organized around mathematical “Computing cophylogenetic invariants”; Eric Shehadi, strands of algebra and functions, statistics and probabil- Youngstown State University, “Safeguard fair voting: Math- ity, geometry and trigonometry, and discrete mathematics. ematically diagnosing gerrymanders”; Eric Lai, University This integrated curriculum was the first such curriculum of California Irvine, “The distance between finite groups”; to have a significant impact on national adoptions, and Elizabeth Greco, Kenyon College, “Brownian motion in over a period of more than twenty years, it has moved to the complex plane”; Dayna Mann, Pepperdine University, second and subsequent editions, including a new Com- “An individual-based model of chaparral vegetation re- mon Core State Standards (CCSS) edition.” He has served sponse to frequent wildfires”; Andre Bunton, University

64 Notices of the AMS January 2015