Mathematics People Virag Receives Synge Award Prizes of the Canadian Balint Virag of the University of Toronto has been cho- Mathematical Society sen the recipient of the John L. Synge Award of the Royal Society of Canada. According to the prize citation, he “is Frédéric Gourdeau of Université Laval has been named world renowned as a leader in research into probability the recipient of the 2014 Adrien Pouliot Award in recog- theory. His many contributions to the subject include nition of his “outstanding contributions to mathemat- groundbreaking results on the subject of random walks. ics education in Canada.” His accomplishments include His remarkable concept of the ‘Brownian Carousel’ has launching the magazine Accromath in 2006 and founding solved fundamental problems in the theory of random and serving as president of the Association Québécoise matrices and will undoubtedly find many further applica- des Jeux Mathématiques (AQJM). He gave a lecture at the tions in the years ahead. His work has been recognized 2012 International Congress in Seoul, Korea. He has served internationally, including by an invitation to International as president of the Canadian Mathematics Education Congress of Mathematicians.” The Synge Award is given Study Group and has been Canada’s representative at the for outstanding research in any branch of the mathemati- International Commission on Mathematical Instruction cal sciences. since 2011. The Adrien Pouliot Award was inaugurated in 1995 to —From a Royal Society announcement recognize individuals who have made significant and sus- tained contributions to mathematics education in Canada. The award is named for Adrien Pouliot, the second CMS Martínez Awarded Rubio de president, who taught mathematics at Université Laval for fifty years and was instrumental in developing Laval’s Francia Prize engineering and science faculty. Xiangwen Zhang has been named the recipient of Angel Castro Martínez has been awarded the Rubio de the 2014 Doctoral Prize for his thesis “Complex Monge- Francia Prize of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society Ampére Equation and Its Applications in Complex Geom- (RSME) for his contributions to partial differential equa- etry,” in which he “solves many problems related to the tions and fluid mechanics, in particular for his results in Monge-Ampére equations on manifolds—which have been the problem of the occurrence of singularities, which in a subject of extensive study since 1978.” He was the recipi- turn contribute to the understanding of the formation of ent of the Alexis D. and W. Charles Pelletier Fellowship in turbulence in incompressible fluids. 2012 and of the Carl Herz Prize in 2011. His work has been The prize honors the memory of J. L. Rubio de Francia published in several mathematics journals. (1949–1988), an internationally renowned Spanish analyst. The CMS Doctoral Prize is awarded annually to recog- It is awarded annually to a young mathematician from nize a Canadian doctoral student who has demonstrated Spain, or residing in Spain, and it is the highest distinction exceptional performance in the area of mathematical given by the RSME. The prize carries a monetary award research. of 3,000 euros (approximately US$3,800). The prize jury consisted of Noga Alon, Jesús Bastero Eleizalde (chair), —From CMS announcements Alvaro Pelayo, Gilles Pisier, Marta Sanz-Solé, Cédric Villani, and Claire Voisin. Recent prize recipients, in chronological order, include A. Enciso, C. Beltran, A. Pelayo, F. Gancedo, and M. Pe 2014 Davidson Fellows Pereira. Selected —From a Royal Spanish Mathematical Four high school students whose projects involved the Society announcement mathematical sciences are among the twenty students DECEMBER 2014 NOTICES OF THE AMS 1359 Mathematics People named 2014 Davidson Fellows. Ravi Jagadeesan, eigh- mathematics and mathematics teaching at all levels in teen, of Naperville, Illinois, was awarded a top prize of a Australia. scholarship worth US$50,000 for his mathematics project “A New Galois Invariant of Dessins d’Enfants.” Ritesh —From an Australian Mathematics Ragavender, seventeen, of Kendall Park, New Jersey, was Trust announcement awarded a US$25,000 scholarship for his mathematics project “Odd Dunkl Operators and nilHecke Algebras.” Kevin Lee, seventeen, of Irvine, California, was awarded Klaus Peters a US$10,000 scholarship for his mathematics project “Strongly Coupled Electromechanical Modeling of the On July 7, 2014, mathemat- Heart in Moving Domains Using the Phase-Field Method.” ics lost one of its most Sara K. Simpson, seventeen, of San Diego, California, re- widely known and highly ceived a top award of US$50,000 for her science project respected publishers. Klaus “Neuronal Nonlinear Dynamics: From an Optical Illusion Peters died unexpectedly to Parkinson’s Disease,” which involves mathematical at home in Sherborn, Mas- modeling of neuron responses. sachusetts. The Davidson Fellows program, a project of the David- He will be long remem- son Institute for Talent Development, awards scholarships bered for his wide influence to students eighteen years of age or younger who have cre- on mathematical publishing, Photo by Gert-Martin Greuel, ated significant projects that have the potential to benefit first with Springer and sub- ©2007 MFO. society in the fields of science, technology, mathematics, sequently with Birkhäuser Klaus Peters literature, music, and philosophy. Boston, Academic Press, and finally the firm A K Peters. Before he went into publishing, —From a Davidson Fellows announcement he earned a doctorate in complex analysis from the Univer- sity of Erlangen (1962) under the supervision of Reinhold Remmert and Georg Nöbeling. After teaching at Erlangen for two years, in 1964 he was invited by Springer- Verlag NDSEG Fellowships Awarded to become their first in-house mathematics editor. Walter Eleven young mathematicians have been awarded National Kaufmann-Bühler was named as the second mathemat- Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fel- ics editor for Springer in Heidelberg, and together they lowships by the Department of Defense (DoD) for 2014. formed a powerful editorial team. That also marked the The fellowships are sponsored by the United States Army, year that Springer opened its first American office, and Navy, and Air Force. As a means of increasing the number Klaus soon found himself dividing his time between Hei- of US citizens trained in disciplines of military importance delberg and New York. in science and engineering, DoD awards fellowships to In 1972 he was named one of Springer’s directors. individuals who have demonstrated ability and special He hired Alice Merker, who had earned degrees from aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering. Rochester and Chicago, to become a mathematics editor The following are the names of the fellows in mathemat- at Springer New York in 1972. Later that year she moved ics, their institutions, and the offices that awarded the to the Heidelberg office. Kaufmann-Bühler moved to the fellowships: Albert Ai, University of California Berkeley, New York office. In September 1972 Klaus and Alice were Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); Thomas married. Seven years later they left Springer to establish Chartrand, University of California Davis, AFOSR; Gur- the American branch of Birkhäuser, later moving to Aca- bir Dhillon, Stanford University, Army Research Office demic Press. In 1992 Klaus and Alice formed A K Peters, (ARO); Jessica Hwang, Stanford University, ARO; Eugene Ltd., which was acquired by CRC Press/Taylor and Fran- Kastevich, Stanford University, Office of Naval Research cis in 2010. Recently Klaus had been consulting with the (ONR); Kara Karpman, Cornell University, AFOSR; Jason American Mathematical Society on a number of different Kaye, New York University, AFOSR; Joseph Lee, Harvard projects. University, AFOSR; Matthew Mizuhara, Pennsylvania Klaus’s passion for mathematics and good exposition State University, ARO; Kirill Serkh, Yale University, ran deep, and in 1972 he, together with Kaufmann-Bühler AFOSR; Lynnelle Ye, Harvard University, AFOSR. and Alice Peters, introduced The Mathematical Intel- ligencer to the mathematical world. The publisher was —From an NDSEG announcement identified as The Yellow Press. In this first issue he wrote, “I have thought for some time that we need an informal forum for debating questions of mutual interest to the B. H. Neumann Awards Given mathematical community and Springer Verlag. This forum should be frank, amusing, informative, and, of course, The Australian Mathematics Trust has awarded two B. H. relevant. It is not without hesitation that I offer this Neumann Awards for service to the mathematics profes- no. 0—the product of our spare time—for public criticism.” sion. The honorees are Holly Gyton and Alan Parris. Sections included the unusual: “Affairs and Forthcoming The awards honor Bernhard H. Neumann, who supported Weddings,” “Fiction,” “Exercise,” “Walks in Mathematics,” 1360 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 61, NUMBER 11 Mathematics People and “News from Hades.” In 1976 the Intelligencer became He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Montreal a Springer publication in magazine format. from 2013 to 2014. Klaus possessed a wonderful imagination that resulted The members of the 2014 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in several new publishing ventures, including The Math- Committee were: Krishnaswami Alladi (Chair; University ematical Intelligencer, the Journal of Experimental Math- of Florida), Roger