Mathematics People understanding of semantics for theoretical and ‘natural 2011–2012 AMS Centennial kind’ terms and of the implications of this semantics for Fellowship Awarded philosophy of language, theory of knowledge, philosophy of science and metaphysics.” Putnam is best known among The AMS has awarded its Centennial Fellowship for mathematicians for work that, together with work by Mar- 2011–2012 to Andrew S. Toms of Purdue University. The tin Davis, Julia Robinson, and Yuri Matiasevich, provided fellowship carries a stipend of US$79,000, an expense a solution to Hilbert’s tenth problem. allowance of US$7,900, and a complimentary Society The Rolf Schock Prizes are awarded every three years in membership for one year. the fields of logic and philosophy, mathematics, the visual Andrew Toms was born in Montreal in 1975. He received arts, and the musical arts. The prize amount is US$75,000. his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2002. After They are awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sci- holding faculty positions at the University of New Bruns- ences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, and the wick and York University, he was appointed associate pro- Royal Swedish Academy of Music. fessor in the Department of Mathematics at Purdue —The Rolf Schock Foundation University in 2010. Re- cently he was the recipient of two Canadian awards: the Canadian Mathemati- Clay Research Awards cal Society’s 2010 G. de B. The Clay Mathematics Institute has awarded its 2011 Re- Robinson Award, given by search Awards to Yves Benoist, CNRS, Université de Paris the Canadian Mathematical Sud 11, and Jean-François Quint, CNRS, Université de Society, and the Israel Hal- Paris 13, for their work on stationary measures and orbit Department of Mathematics. perin Prize for outstand- closures and to Jonathan Pila, Mathematical Institute, ing work in operator alge- Oxford University, for his resolution of the André-Oort bras or operator theory by conjecture in the case of products of modular curves. Photo courtesy of the Purdue University members of the Canadian According to the citations, Benoist and Quint were hon- mathematical community. Andrew S. Toms ored “for their spectacular work on stationary measures Toms’s mathematical in- and orbit closures for actions of nonabelian groups on terests include the classification of C*-algebras and points homogeneous spaces. This work is a major breakthrough of contact between operator algebras, logic, and topology. in homogeneous dynamics and related areas of mathemat- —Elaine Kehoe ics. In particular, Benoist and Quint proved the follow- ing conjecture of Furstenberg: Let H be a Zariski dense semisimple subgroup of a Lie group which acts by left Aschbacher and Putnam translations on the quotient of G by a discrete subgroup with finite covolume. Consider a probability measure m Awarded Rolf Schock Prizes on H whose support generates H. Then any m-stationary Michael Aschbacher of the California Institute of Tech- probability measure for such an action is H-invariant.” Pila nology and Hilary Putnam of Harvard University have was honored “for his resolution of the André-Oort conjec- been awarded Rolf Schock Prizes for 2011. ture in the case of products of modular curves. This work Aschbacher was awarded the 2011 Rolf Schock Prize in gives the first unconditional proof of fundamental cases Mathematics “for his fundamental contributions to one of of these general conjectures beyond the original theorem the largest mathematical projects ever, the classification of André concerning the product of two such curves. The of finite simple groups, notably his contribution to the foundational techniques that Pila developed to achieve this quasi-thin case.” He has made fundamental contributions to group theory, especially regarding the classification breakthrough range from results in real analytic geometry of finite simple groups. He received the AMS Cole Prize which give sharp upper bounds for the number of rational in 1980 and was elected a member of the U.S. National points of bounded height on certain analytic sets to the Academy of Sciences in 1990. use of O-minimal structures in mathematical logic.” Putnam was awarded the 2011 Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy “for his contribution to the —From a Clay Mathematics Institute announcement JUNE/JULY 2011 NOTICES OF THE AMS 835 Mathematics People Grigoris Paouris, Texas A&M University; Per-Olof Pers- Getz and Goresky Awarded son, University of California, Berkeley; Jessica S. Purcell, 2011 Balaguer Prize Brigham Young University; Robert M. Strain, University of Pennsylvania; Ignacio Uriarte-Tuero, Michigan State The Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer Foundation has awarded the University; Dapeng Zhan, Michigan State University. Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer Prize for 2011 to Jayce Getz, McGill University, Montreal, and Mark Goresky, School of —From a Sloan Foundation announcement Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Uni- versity, for their joint monograph Hilbert Modular Forms with Coefficients in Intersection Homology and Quadratic Brenner Awarded Kovalevsky Base Change. According to the prize citation, the mono- Lectureship graph explains “deep phenomena in number theory and algebraic geometry using geometric/topological methods, Suzanne Brenner of Louisiana State University has notably intersection homology. This builds on celebrated been chosen as the AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecturer work by F. Hirzebruch and D. Zagier. It presents a pleas- for 2011 by the Association for Women in Mathematics ant equilibrium between the survey/monograph part and (AWM). She will deliver the AWM-SIAM Kovalevsky Lecture the research part: On the one hand it contains interesting at the 2011 International Congress on Industrial and Ap- results which appear here for the first time, but it also plied Mathematics. Brenner was honored for significant has several chapters which introduce the reader to the research accomplishments in multigrid methods, domain different subjects needed to understand the main results.” decomposition methods, and finite element analysis. The Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer Foundation of the In- stitut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) awards this international —From an AWM announcement prize every year to honor the memory of Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer (1912–1967), a self-taught Catalan mathemati- cian who gained international recognition for his research Pelayo Receives Rubio de in mathematical analysis despite the serious physical dis- abilities with which he was born. The prize carries a cash Francia Prize award of 15,000 euros (approximately US$21,000); the Álvaro Pelayo of the Institute for Advanced Study and winning monographs are published by Birkhäuser Verlag. Washington University in St. Louis has been awarded the Rubio de Francia Prize for 2010 by the Royal Spanish —From a Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer Foundation Mathematical Society (RSME). The prize was awarded for announcement contributions “at a very high level already at a very early stage of his career.” The prize honors the memory of J. L. Rubio de Francia Sloan Fellowships Awarded (1949–1988), an internationally renowned Spanish analyst. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has announced the names It is awarded annually to a young mathematician from of the recipients of the 2011 Sloan Research Fellowships. Spain, or residing in Spain, and it is the highest distinction Each year the foundation awards fellowships in the fields given by the RSME. of mathematics, chemistry, computational and evolu- The prize jury consisted of M. J. Carro, M. J. Este- tionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, ban, M. L. Fernández, D. Nualart, J. M. Sanz, T. Tao, and neuroscience, and physics. Grants of US$50,000 for a two- E. Zelmanov. year period are administered by each fellow’s institution. —From a Royal Spanish Mathematical Society (RSME) Once chosen, fellows are free to pursue whatever lines of announcement inquiry that most interest them, and they are permitted to employ fellowship funds in a wide variety of ways to further their research aims. Eisenbrand and Schröder Following are the names and institutions of the 2011 awardees in mathematics: Silas D. Alben, Georgia In- Awarded Humboldt stitute of Technology; Maria Cameron, University of Professorships Maryland, College Park; Sabin Cautis, Columbia Univer- sity; Carina P. Curto, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Friedrich Eisenbrand of École Polytechnique Fédérale Laurent Demanet, Massachusetts Institute of Technol- de Lausanne and Peter Schröder of the California In- ogy; Volker Elling, University of Michigan; Mikhail stitute of Technology have been awarded Alexander von Ershov, University of Virginia; Toby S. Gee, Northwestern Humboldt Professorships for 2011 by the Alexander von University; Philip T. Gressman, University of Pennsylvania; Humboldt Foundation. Matthew Hedden, Michigan State University; Michael A. Eisenbrand was awarded the professorship in math- Hill, University of Virginia; Roman Holowinsky, Ohio ematics. According to the prize citation, he “is a world State University; Aaron D. Lauda, Columbia University; leader in the field of algorithmics and discrete math- Xiaoqing Li, State University of New York at Buffalo; ematics and works at the intersection between pure Dragos Oprea, University of California, San Diego; research and applications.” He does research in integral 836 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 58, NUMBER 6 Mathematics People optimization that “could be of use to both industry and telecommunications in capacity planning.”