Professor Terence Tao Receives 2022 Grand Médaille of the French Academy of Sciences

Professor Terence Tao has been chosen as the 2022 recipient of the Grand Médaille of the French Academy of Sciences.

“It is no exaggeration to call him the ‘Mozart of mathematics’ and he managed to go from being a child prodigy (we see him discussing at 10 years old with Paul Erdös, winning a gold medal at the Math Olympiad in thirteen years old, being appointed permanent professor at the age of 21 at the University of California at Los Angeles etc.) at the stage of a famous mathematician accumulating renowned prizes including the Fields medal,” translated from the French Academy of Sciences website.

He shall receive the Grand Medal on Tuesday, March 21st, 2023 at 2.30 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Institut de France – 23 quai de Conti, Paris 6th. The session is open to a general scientific public. The event program is now available online here.

To read the full press release, click here.

For previous recipients of this award, see here.

In Memoriam: Paul H. Roberts

It is with great sadness to write that Professor Emeritus Paul Roberts passed away on November 17th. 

He joined the UCLA Mathematics department in 1986 as a joint appointment with the Geophysical Sciences Department after receiving his PhD from Cambridge University in 1954. He joined UCLA as a Chair in the Math Department and a Research Chair in the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). He led an illustrious career in mathematics, geophysics, and related sciences. 

He was honored with the Fleming Medal by The American Geophysical Union in 1999. He has also been named a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1979, the American Geophysical Union in 1989, and the Royal Astronomical Society in 1954, and a Fulbright Scholar. He was also elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“Some of us, who had been Prof. Paul Roberts’ PhD students, met and we talked about the profound effect Paul had on our lives and the love and respect we carry for him,” Dr. Michael Shearer wrote to his wife, Mary Roberts.

Roberts enjoyed working on his research until the end and cherished many happy memories of his research and his collaborations with colleagues around the world.

Roberts is survived by his wife Mary.

Please view his Royal Society profile here.

Read his AGU interview after winning the 1999 John Adam Fleming Medal Winner here. 

UCLA Curtis Center Applied Mathematics Mentorship Program cultivates mathematical excellence in underrepresented youth

Don Liebig/UCLA

Through the Applied Mathematics Mentorship Program(AMMP), UCLA students are encouraging young Latino and Black seventh to ninth graders to incorporate math into their communities and real life settings. The program also strives to build confidence in the students to believe in their math skills and that they have the capability to excel in the field of mathematics.

Featured in the UCLA Newsroom, Heather Dallas, executive director of the Curtis Center for Mathematics and Teaching at UCLA, said, “We’re trying to embed mirrors and windows into the student experience so they see mathematics as a field in which they belong.”

Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenge grant, AMMP is a collaborative effort between the Curtis Center, three LAUSD middle schools, SpaceX engineers, FieldKit environmental technologists and the UCLA Myco-fluidics Lab.

To learn more about AMMP, please visit the Curtis Center website here.

Read the full UCLA Newsroom article here.

Read the full Daily Bruin article here.

View the featured video on Telemundo here.

Photo Credit: Don Liebig/UCLA

UCLA Putnam Team ranks #7 out of 456 institutions

In the 2022 Putnam Mathematical Competition, the UCLA team were ranked #7 out of 456 institutions.

Individually, Zachary Tu and Runze Yu received honorable mentions for ranking in the top 100 nationwide.

Varit Chantranuwathana, Issac Li, and Alvin Liu placed amongst the 101-200 ranks. Other high scorers who placed in the 201-500 ranks were Xuanhao Cui, Eric Gan, Zelong Li,  Sumith Nalabolu, Sachin Sahay, and John Xiaoshu Zhou. A total of 3415 students participated in this year’s competition, including 49 students from UCLA.

The Basil Gordon Prize, for the top scorer among UCLA students, will be awarded to Zachary Tu.

For more information, visit https://ww3.math.ucla.edu/putnam-competition/.

Official Press Release found here.

Announcements of Winners found here.

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