Awards

At a ceremony held in Istanbul on April 10, 2025, Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, was presented with a Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award for her contributions to scholarship on the theme of "Realigning Values in a Transforming World Order: What needs preserving, reevaluating, and redefining?"

Three past IAS scholars representing the Schools of Mathematics and Natural Sciences have been named among the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Foundation laureates: Dennis Gaitsgory, John Pardon, and Gerard 't Hooft. Popularly known as "the Oscars of Science," the Breakthrough Prize honors scholars who are "driving remarkable discoveries" in their fields.

Itai Linial, Member (2022–23); Shi-Fan Chen, Member (2022–25); and Nadine Soliman, Member (2025–30), all from the School of Natural Sciences, have received 2025 Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships from NASA. The trio will join an “outstanding” class of fellows to address questions such as “How does the universe work?” and “How did we get here?”

Yue Hu, NASA Hubble Fellow in the School of Natural Sciences, has been announced as one of the recipients of the 2025 Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award in Astrophysics. Hu's thesis was praised for opening "new ways of exploring the properties of astrophysical turbulent magnetic fields."

Four of the six recipients of the International Congress of Basic Science's 2025 Basic Science Lifetime Award are past IAS scholars: Shigefumi Mori, George Lusztig, and Robert Tarjan from the School of Mathematics and David Gross from the School of Natural Sciences. The award is bestowed upon “extraordinary” scientists in their respective fields.

Masaki Kashiwara, Member (1977–78) in the School of Mathematics, has been awarded the 2025 Abel Prize, often described as the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for his “fundamental contributions to algebraic analysis and representation theory, in particular the development of the theory of D-modules and the discovery of crystal bases.”

David Rubenstein, Trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study since 2005, will be conferred the highest honor from Eisenhower Fellowships for his philanthropic generosity, innovative leadership, and commitment to serving others.

Ten past IAS scholars from the School of Mathematics have been named as recipients in the 2025 American Mathematical Society (AMS) Awards. The work for which the scholars were recognized ranged from topics in algebraic geometry to contributions to the Langlands program. AMS described the 2025 awardees as having "far-reaching impact" that has "educated a generation" of mathematicians. 

IAS Trustee David M. Rubenstein has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden. This prestigious honor is the nation's highest civilian award. Rubenstein was recognized "for his philanthropy and generous support for the restoration of historic landmarks and the country’s cultural institutions."

On November 11, 2024, Avi Wigderson, Herbert H. Maass Professor in the School of Mathematics, was officially presented with an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Wigderson was recognized for "his pioneering contributions to mathematics and computer science, which have opened new horizons in both fields, and at the interface between them."