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Report for the Academic Year 2017–2018 Institute for Advanced Study Re port for 2 0 1 7–2 0 INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY 1 8 EINSTEIN DRIVE PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08540 Report for the Academic Year (609) 734-8000 www.ias.edu 2017–2018 Cover: SHATEMA THREADCRAFT, Ralph E. and Doris M. Hansmann Member in the School of Social Science (right), gives a talk moderated by DIDIER FASSIN (left), James D. Wolfensohn Professor, on spectacular black death at Ideas 2017–18. Opposite: Fuld Hall COVER PHOTO: DAN KOMODA Table of Contents DAN KOMODA DAN Reports of the Chair and the Director 4 The Institute for Advanced Study 6 School of Historical Studies 8 School of Mathematics 20 School of Natural Sciences 30 School of Social Science 40 Special Programs and Outreach 48 Record of Events 57 80 Acknowledgments 88 Founders, Trustees, and Officers of the Board and of the Corporation 89 Administration 90 Present and Past Directors and Faculty 91 Independent Auditors’ Report THOMAS CLARKE REPORT OF THE CHAIR The Institute for Advanced Study’s independence and excellence led by Sanjeev Arora, Visiting Professor in the School require the dedication of many benefactors, and in 2017–18, of Mathematics. we celebrated the retirements of our venerable Vice Chairs The Board was delighted to welcome new Trustees Mark Shelby White and Jim Simons, whose extraordinary service has Heising, Founder and Managing Director of the San Francisco enhanced the Institute beyond measure. I am immensely grateful investment firm Medley Partners, and Dutch astronomer and and feel exceptionally privileged to have worked with both chemist Ewine Fleur van Dishoeck, Professor of Molecular Shelby and Jim in shaping and guiding the Institute into the Astrophysics at the University of Leiden. Ewine succeeds Jeff twenty-first century. Harvey, Enrico Fermi Distinguished Service Professor at the Shelby’s acumen, loyalty, and invaluable contributions since University of Chicago and a Trustee since 2013, whose service her appointment to the Board in 2003 have been crucial to the is greatly appreciated. Institute’s continued success as a research institution of the high- The Institute’s commitment to the freedom of the mind est standard. A former Member in the School of Mathematics and the acceleration of ideas, since its establishment in 1930, who joined the Institute’s Board in 2001, Jim has been one of has facilitated foundational theories and ideas that turn into our most generous patrons, having contributed nearly $150 applications, innovation, and new tools and technologies. This million to the Institute. Jim has an intimate understanding of long-view understanding and knowledge would not be possible how the Institute’s extraordinarily focused yet freely inquisitive without our Trustees, Faculty, Members, Staff, and donors for environment leads to advancement in unforeseeable ways. whose dedication I am most grateful. In addition, we are indebted to Trustee Eric Schmidt and Wendy Schmidt for their $2 million gift to launch, as of fall Charles Simonyi 2017, a three-year Program in Theoretical Machine Learning Chair of the Board REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR For nearly a century, the Institute for Advanced Study has were appointed to the Faculty of the School of Historical served as a model and ideal for basic research, which is made Studies. Camillo De Lellis, a geometric analyst, and 2018 Fields publicly accessible and so benefits society as a whole, spreading Medalist Akshay Venkatesh, who works at the intersection of widely beyond the circle of individuals who, over years and analytic number theory, algebraic number theory, and repre- decades, introduce and develop the ideas. sentation theory, were appointed to the Faculty of the School Our Faculty, who select each year’s Members from around of Mathematics. the world, continued to be recognized in 2017–18 for their We express deep appreciation for the many exemplary and leader ship and contributions to their fields. Jean Bourgain, IBM continued contributions of Robert MacPherson, Hermann von Neumann Professor in the School of Mathematics, received Weyl Professor in the School of Mathematics, who transitions as the 2018 Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Amer- of July 2018 to Professor Emeritus status, having served on the ican Mathematical Society. Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Faculty since 1994. Professor in the School of Social Science, was awarded the 2018 We were profoundly saddened by the death of Vladimir NOMIS Distinguished Scientist Award, the first social scientist Voevodsky on September 30, 2017, at age 51. Vladimir joined to receive the honor. Juan Maldacena’s pioneering research on the Institute as a Professor in the School of Mathematics in 2002, the quantum physics of black holes was recognized with the shortly before he was awarded a Fields Medal. A visionary whose 2018 Lorentz Medal by the Royal Netherlands Academy of work will continue to challenge and enrich the field in lasting Arts and Sciences and the Einstein Medal from the Albert ways, Vladimir is greatly missed by the Institute community Einstein Society in Bern. And Robert Langlands, Professor and family, friends, and colleagues throughout the world. Emeritus in the School of Mathematics, received the highly The Institute’s role—going against the grain, swimming prestigious 2018 Abel Prize by the Norwegian Academy of as far upstream as we can, and being a forceful advocate and Science and Letters for his visionary program connecting highest example for basic research—is more important than representation theory to number theory. ever. It requires the support of each of us, and I deeply We were delighted to announce the appointment of four appreciate the many champions of our mission. new Professors, who will join the Faculty in the 2018–19 academic year. Myles Jackson, a historian of science, and Robbert Dijkgraaf Francesca Trivellato, a historian of the early modern period, Director and Leon Levy Professor 4 ALL PHOTOS DAN KOMODA DAN ALL PHOTOS Top: CHARLES SIMONYI, Chair of the IAS Board of Trustees Above: ROBBERT DIJKGRAAF, Director and Leon Levy Professor 5 The Institute for Advanced Study It was founding Director Abraham Flexner’s belief that if the Institute “eschews the chase for the useful, the minds of its scholars will be liberated, they will be free to take advantage of surprises, and someday an unexpected discovery, apparently leading nowhere, will be found to be an indispensable link in a long and complex chain that may open new worlds in theory and practice.” FROM THE DEVELOPMENT of programmable computers and the uncovering of the deep symmetries of nature, to advances in societal understanding and historical practice, long and complex chains of knowledge have developed for nearly ninety years through research originating at the Institute for Advanced Study. Albert Einstein was one of the first in a continuous line of distinguished Institute scientists and scholars who have produced a deeper under- standing of the physical world and of humanity. Yet the Institute’s remarkable history does not seem to weigh heavily on current scholars and scientists. Instead, the atmosphere focuses on the present, where every twist and hairpin bend changes our view. What do we know? What do we yet need to understand? How should we try to comprehend it? Work at the Institute takes place across historical studies, mathematics, natural sciences, and social science. A permanent Faculty each year award fellowships to some two hundred visiting Members, from about one hundred universities and research institutions throughout the world. The Institute’s reach has been multiplied many times over through the more than eight thousand Members who have influenced entire fields of study as well as the work and minds of colleagues and students. Thirty-three Nobel Laureates, forty-two of the sixty Fields Medalists, and seventeen of the nineteen Abel Prize Laureates, as well as many winners of the Wolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute. At the Institute, everything is designed to encourage scholars to take their research to the next level. This includes creating and sustaining an ALL PHOTOS DAN KOMODA DAN ALL PHOTOS 6 environment where Members live in an academic village of apartments, originally designed by Marcel Breuer in 1957, at the edge of the Institute’s eight hundred acres of campus, woodland, and farmland. Members eat in the same dining hall, share common rooms and libraries, and carry out their work in an institutional setting where human scale has been carefully maintained to encourage the sharing of ideas, mutual under- standing, and friendship. Each year a new intellectual mix is created by the Members, ranging from young postdoctoral ANDREA KANE fellows to distinguished senior professors, who typically stay a year but may stay up to five years and return for subsequent visits throughout their careers. A period spent as a Member is often a life-changing experience. Young scholars meet the contemporaries who, with them, will be leading figures in their field in the future. Senior Members have the time and freedom to initiate new lines of research. Freed from teaching and administration, Members are afforded opportunities for discussing their work with scholars and scientists from other KOMODA DAN fields. Here they are given the time to take advantage of serendipitous encounters at lunch, teatime, or at After Hours Conversations, an interdisciplinary program to encourage wide - ranging conversations in an informal environment. Throughout the year, the Institute hosts a broad array of concerts, lectures, and programs for the Institute community and the public. In addition, the Institute offers numerous and varied activities for Members, Visitors, and their families— from children’s activities to play readings and KOMODA DAN jazz evenings. Fundamental research at the Institute furthers our grasp of a world of diverse facts, structures, ideas, and cultures. This is due in large part to the precious freedom that Faculty and Members at the Institute experience—an independence enabled by the generosity of the Institute’s founders and subsequent benefactors.
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