comm-veblen.qxp 2/27/01 3:48 PM Page 408 2001 Veblen Prize Jeff Cheeger Yakov Eliashberg Michael J. Hopkins Oswald Veblen (1880–1960), who served as presi- a biographical sketch, and the response of the dent of the AMS in 1923 and 1924, was well known recipient upon receiving the prize. for his work in geometry and topology. In 1961 the trustees of the Society established a fund Jeff Cheeger in memory of Veblen, contributed originally by Citation former students and colleagues and later doubled The 2001 Veblen Prize in Geometry is awarded to by his widow. Since 1964 the fund has been used Jeff Cheeger for his work in differential geometry. for the award of the Oswald Veblen Prize in In particular the prize is awarded for: Geometry. Subsequent awards were made at five- 1. His works on the space of Riemannian year intervals. The current amount of the prize is metrics with Ricci curvature bounded from below, $4,000 (in case of multiple recipients, the amount such as his rigidity theorems for manifolds of is divided equally). nonnegative Ricci curvature and his joint efforts At the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New with Colding on the structure of the space of Orleans in January 2001, the 2001 Veblen Prize metrics with Ricci curvature bounded from below. was presented to JEFF CHEEGER, YAKOV ELIASHBERG, These works led to the resolution of various con- and MICHAEL J. HOPKINS. jectures in Riemannian geometry and provided Previous recipients of the Veblen Prize are: significant understanding of how singularities Christos D. Papakyriakopolous and Raoul H. Bott form in the degeneration of Einstein metrics on (1964); Stephen Smale, Morton Brown, and Barry Riemannian manifolds. Mazur (1966); Robion C. Kirby and Dennis P. J. Cheeger and T. H. Colding, “Lower bounds on Sullivan (1971); William P. Thurston and James the Ricci curvature and the almost rigidity of Simons (1976); Mikhael Gromov and Shing-Tung warped products”, Ann. of Math. 144 (1996), Yau (1981); Michael H. Freedman (1986); Andrew 189–237. Casson and Clifford H. Taubes (1991); and Richard J. Cheeger and T. H. Colding, “On the structure Hamilton and Gang Tian (1996). of spaces with Ricci curvature bounded below. I”, The Veblen Prize is awarded by the AMS Council, J. Differential Geom. 45 (1997), 1–75. acting through a selection committee whose mem- 2. His works on eta invariants and index theory, bers at the time of this award were Mikhael Gromov e.g., (chair), Richard S. Hamilton, Robion C. Kirby, and J. M. Bismut and J. Cheeger, “The index theorem Gang Tian. The text that follows contains, for for families of Dirac operators on manifolds with each of the three prize recipients, the prize citation, boundary; superconnections and cones; I, II”, 408 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 48, NUMBER 4 comm-veblen.qxp 2/27/01 3:48 PM Page 409 J. Funct. Anal. 89, no. 2 (1990), 313–363; and 90, (1975), Gromov’s compactness theorem for the no. 2 (1990), 306–354. Gromov-Hausdorff distance (1981), Anderson’s Biographical Sketch convergence theorems (1989), Abresch-Gromoll’s Jeff Cheeger was born on December 1, 1943, in inequality (1990), and the new techniques intro- Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Harvard duced by Colding (1994) in proving conjectures of University in 1964 and received his Ph.D. from Anderson’s and mine. Princeton University in 1967. After one-year stays A point that came up in my study of analytic tor- at the University of California, Berkeley, and the sion suggested that one could do index theory L2- University of Michigan, he joined the mathemat- cohomology on singular spaces (circa 1975). The ics department at the State University of New York, most basic case was that in which a metric cone Stony Brook. Since 1989 he has been a member of was attached to the boundary of a manifold with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, boundary. The resulting index formula for the New York University. signature operator was identical to that of Atiyah- Cheeger has been the recipient of National Patodi-Singer, but rather than being associated to Science Foundation Postdoctoral, Sloan, and the boundary, the -invariant term arose from the Guggenheim Fellowships, as well as of a Max singularity. Much later this turned out to be of Planck Research Award from the Alexander von technical importance in Bismut’s and my proof of Humboldt Society. He gave the Marston Morse the families index theorem for manifolds with Lectures at the Institute for Advanced Study in boundary. There the Bismut superconnection was Princeton in 1992, and 45-minute invited addresses also crucial. at the International Congress of Mathematicians I want to express my gratitude to my father, in 1974 and in 1986. He is a member of the National Thomas Cheeger, who first aroused my passion for Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the mathematics; to my teachers, Salomon Bochner, Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. Raoul Bott, Jim Simons, and Shlomo Sternberg; to Response S. S. Chern and Is Singer; and to my collaborators. I am very honored to be named, along with Yasha All have helped me immeasurably. Eliashberg and Michael Hopkins, as a recipient of Yakov Eliashberg the Veblen Prize. It is especially gratifying to be recognized for work on subjects that have been Citation central to my research throughout my career. My The 2001 Veblen Prize in Geometry is awarded to work on these subjects includes joint efforts Yakov Eliashberg for his work in symplectic and with a number of wonderful collaborators: Mike contact topology. In particular the prize is awarded Anderson, Jean-Michel Bismut, Toby Colding, and for: Detlef Gromoll. 1. His proof of the symplectic rigidity, presented A unifying theme is the key role played by in his ICM talk: spaces possessing a simple canonical geometric “Combinatorial methods in symplectic geome- structure, spaces which split off lines as isomet- try”, Proceedings of the International Congress of ric factors and metric cones. Mathematicians, Vols. 1, 2 (Berkeley, California, Rigidity theorems for Ricci curvature assert that 1986), Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1987, geometric conditions that cannot be realized if the pp. 531–539. Ricci curvature has a particular strict lower 2. The development of 3-dimensional contact bound are realized only in the presence of special topology, presented in the papers: structure if “strict” is relaxed to “weak”. In almost “Classification of overtwisted contact struc- rigidity theorems both the hypotheses and tures on 3-manifolds”, Invent. Math. 98, no. 3 conclusions hold up to a specified error. If the (1989), 623–637; and “Invariants in contact topol- Ricci curvature has a definite lower bound, then on ogy”, Proceedings of the International Congress of a small but definite scale, after rescaling, the Mathematicians, Vol. II (Berlin, 1998). hypotheses of certain almost rigidity theorems for Biographical Sketch nonnegative Ricci curvature—the splitting theorem Yakov Eliashberg was born in December 1946 in and volume cone imply the metric cone theorem— Leningrad, USSR. He received his Ph.D. from are satisfied “generically”. So these theorems govern Leningrad University in 1972 under the direction the small-scale structure of such manifolds and, of V. A. Rokhlin. From 1972 to 1979 he taught at in limiting cases, the structure of the singular set. the Syktyvkar University of Komi Republic of Gromoll and I proved the splitting theorem for Russia and from 1980 to 1987 worked in industry nonnegative Ricci curvature in 1970. Colding’s and as the head of a computer software group. In 1988 my almost rigid version took another twenty-five Eliashberg moved to the United States, and since years. Precursors of our work include Bochner’s 1989 he has been a professor of mathematics at formula (1946), Toponogov’s splitting theorem for Stanford University. Eliashberg received the nonnegative sectional curvature (1959), Bishop’s Leningrad Mathematical Society Prize in 1972. In inequality (1963), Cheng-Yau’s gradient estimate 1986 and in 1998 he was an invited speaker at the APRIL 2001 NOTICES OF THE AMS 409 comm-veblen.qxp 2/27/01 3:48 PM Page 410 International Congress of Mathematicians. He 3. His work on elliptic spectra, represented in delivered the Porter Lectures at Rice University part in the paper with Matthew Ando and Neil (1992), the Rademacher Lectures at the University Strickland, “Elliptic spectra, the Witten genus, and of Pennsylvania (1996), the Marston Morse Lec- the theorem of the cube”. tures at the Institute for Advanced Study (1996), Biographical Sketch the Frontiers in Mathematics Lectures at Texas Michael Hopkins was born on April 18, 1958, in A&M University (1997), and the Marker Lectures Alexandria, Virginia. He received his Ph.D. from at Pennsylvania State University (2000). In 1995 Northwestern University in 1984 under the direc- Eliashberg was a recipient of the Guggenheim tion of Mark Mahowald. In 1984 he also received Fellowship. his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford under the Response supervision of Ioan James. I am greatly honored to be a corecipient of the Hopkins has held the position of professor of Oswald Veblen Prize of the AMS along with such mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of outstanding mathematicians as Jeff Cheeger and Technology since 1990 after a few years of teach- Mike Hopkins. Symplectic geometry and topology ing at Princeton University, a one-year position has flourished during the last two decades, and I with the University of Chicago, and a visiting am happy that I was able to contribute to its suc- lecturer position at Lehigh University. He gave cess. I want first to thank my wife, Ada, for her invited addresses at the 1990 Winter Meeting of lifelong support.