LONDONLONDON MATHEMATICALMATHEMATICAL SOCIETYSOCIETY NEWSLETTER No. 440 October 2014 Society Meetings FIRST WOMAN TO RECEIVE A and Events FIELDS MEDAL Maryam Mirzakhani from sought-after proof of the conjec- 2014 Stanford University has become ture that – while the closure of a Tuesday the first woman to receive a real geodesic in moduli space can 21 October Fields Medal in its nearly 80 year be a fractal cobweb, defying classi- LMS Good Practice history. Professor Mirzakhani fication – the closure of a complex Scheme Workshop was presented with her medal geodesic is always an algebraic London page 13 by the President of South Korea, subvariety. Park Geun-hye, at the opening Mirzakhani was born in Tehran Wednesday 29 October ceremony of this year’s Interna- in 1977 and obtained her BSc LMS Computer Science tional Congress of Mathemati- in Mathematics (1999) from the Colloquium, London 1 page 21 cians held in Seoul from 13 to 21 Sharif University of Technology. August 2014. She received the She then moved to the US to begin Friday 14 November award for her ‘outstanding con- her doctorate work with Curtis LMS AGM tributions to the dynamics and McMullen at Harvard Univer- Naylor Lecture geometry of Riemann surfaces sity, where she received her PhD London and their moduli spaces’. In in 2004. From 2004 to 2008 she page 11 essence for her contributions to was a Clay Mathematics Institute Wednesday the fields of topology, geometry, Research Fellow and an assistant 17 December and dynamical systems. professor at Princeton University. SW & South Wales Most recently, Mirzakhani and She has been a professor of math- Regional Meeting her co-workers produced the long ematics at Stanford since 2008. Plymouth page 25 2015 Friday 16 January 150th Anniversary Launch, London Friday 27 February Mary Cartwright Lecture, London Tuesday 7 April Northern Regional Meeting, Lancaster page 8 NEWSLETTER ONLINE: newsletter.lms.ac.uk Photo courtesy of Maryam Mirzakhani LMS NEWSLETTER http://newsletter.lms.ac.uk Contents No. 440 October 2014 17 26 Awards INI Regulating Systemic Risk.................30 BSHM Neumann Book Prize...................7 Random Matrix Theory...........................30 Grace Chisholm Young Fellowship ........4 Topology and Integrability....................29 MARM Awards.........................................6 News Postdoctoral Mobility Grants.................4 Dame Katheleen Ollerenshaw Zeeman Medal 2014................................12 Memorial Service.....................................25 2 First Woman to Receive Fields Calendar of Events..................................38 Medal....................................................... 1 LMS Items International Centre for Mathematical Sciences............................9 Announcement.......................................8 Mathematics Policy Round-up...............10 Annual General Meeting.......................7 Annual LMS Subscription 2014-15..........3 Obituaries Elections to Council and Nominating Cariolaro, David.......................................33 Committee 2014......................................6 McLeod, John..........................................31 LMS-EPSRC Durham Symposia - Call Ollerenshaw, Dame Kathleen.................32 for proposals............................................27 Reports ICM 2014.................................................17 LMS Meetings ICWM 2014..............................................18 Annual General Meeting........................11 IMU General Assembly 2014..................20 Computer Science Colloquium...............21 Inner and Outer Model Theory..............22 Good Practice Scheme Workshop.........13 Theory of Water Waves.........................26 Northern Regional Meeting..................8 Reviews SW & South Wales Regional Meeting....25 James Clerk Maxwell..............................35 LMS Records of Proceedings Probably Approximately Correct...........36 Records of Proceedings – London...........14 Visions of Mathematics..........................37 Records of Proceedings – ICM, Seoul.....15 Scholarship Meetings Cecil King Travel Scholarship 2014.........10 BCS-FACS Evening Seminar.....................24 Visits Complex Geometry and Symplectic Grieser, Daniel..........................................28 Topology..................................................28 Mwesigye, Feresiano...............................28 ICMS 2015 Workshops............................9 van Doorn, Erik........................................28 [email protected] No. 440 October 2014 While she dreamed of being a writer as a young This work has become increasingly high profile girl, she chose to follow through her passion for following the launch at the House of Commons solving mathematical problems. in 2013 of the LMS report Advancing Women She hopes her award will motivate young in Mathematics: Good Practice in UK University girls to pursue STEM subjects. ‘I will be happy Departments (www.blitzadv.co.uk/LMS-BTL- if it encourages young female scientists and 17Report.pdf) and the most recent LMS Women mathematicians’ Mirzakhani told the Stanford in Maths Day was heavily oversubscribed. website. ‘I am sure there will be many more Professor Gwyneth Stallard, Chair, LMS Women women winning this kind of award in coming in Mathematics Committee, commented; ‘The years’. award of the Fields medal to Maryam Mir- The London Mathematical Society is zakhani marks a turning point in the history of committed to addressing the issues faced by women in mathematics. I was thrilled to hear women in mathematics through its Women in of the award and fascinated by the story of her Mathematics Committee and has led the way in life so far (tinyurl.com/mdrwcez) which is truly providing support and guidance on these issues. inspirational’. ANNUAL LMS SUBSCRIPTION 2014-15 Members are reminded that their annual sub- scription. scription, including payment for publications, The Society encourages payment by for the period November 2014 - October 2015 direct debit. If you do not already pay 3 is due on 1 November 2014 and should be by this method and would like to set up paid no later than 1 December 2014. a direct debit (this requires a UK bank In September, the Society sent a reminder to account), please visit the LMS website to all members to renew their subscription for download the direct debit mandate form: 2014-15. If you have not received a reminder, www.lms.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Member please email [email protected]. ship/ Direct%20Debit%20Form.pdf. Further information about subscription The Society also accepts payment by cheque rates for 2014-15 and a subscription form or credit/debit card. may also be found on the Society’s website: Elizabeth Fisher www.lms.ac.uk/content/paying-your-sub Membership & Activities Officer Editorial team Publication dates and deadlines http://newsletter.lms.ac.uk Published monthly, except August. Items and Editorial office General Editor advertisements by the first day of the month prior London Mathematical Society, Mr A.J.S. Mann to publication, or the closest preceding working day. De Morgan House, 57–58 Russell ([email protected]) Notices and advertisements are not accepted for Square, London WC1B 4HS events that occur in the first week of the publication (t: 020 7637 3686; Reviews Editor month. f: 020 7323 3655) Professor D. 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LMS NEWSLETTER http://newsletter.lms.ac.uk GRACE CHISHOLM YOUNG FELLOWSHIP Three New Fellows The London Mathematical Society is pleased to announce the awards of three new Grace Chisholm Young Fellowships: Dr Shabnam Beheshti will undertake a Fellowship at Queen Mary, University of London. Her primary research involves systematic in- vestigation of integrability and dressing of harmonic maps, admitting elegant connections between differential geometry and relativity (e.g. chiral field models and nonlinear sigma-models). It is her aim to eventually create a niche interdisciplinary research group at the interface of Analysis and PDEs with Combinatorics, General Relativity © Shabnam Beheshti and Fluid Dynamics. Dr Ye Sle Cha will undertake a Fellowship at the University of Oxford. She will be conducting research under the guidance of Dr Qian Wang and the PDE group of the Mathematical Institute. She is also planning to teach some courses related to her field, geometric analysis. Dr Cristina Sargent will undertake a Fellowship at Imperial College London. She will be working 4 with Professor John Elgin on developing a mathematical repre- sentation of the electromagnetic field in media with doubly negative refractive index. She also plans to develop some of her computational abilities and learn/become more familiar © Cristina