NEWS Mathematics People Assaf Naor was born in 1975 in Rehovot, Israel. He Naor Awarded received his PhD in mathematics 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 268 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 67, NUMBER 2 Mathematics People NEWS 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 Mathematical Physics “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 FEBRUARY 2020 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY 269 Mathematics People NEWS 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.