Former Institute Members Receive Mathematics Awards

Seven individuals associated with the Institute received awards at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston on January 5. The American Mathematical Society awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research to William P. Thurston. Thurston was a Member in the School of Mathematics in 1972–73, 1976, and 1984–85. He is currently Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Mathematics at Cornell University. Former Member Björn Engquist (1991–92) received the AMS-SIAM George David Birkhoff Prize in Applied Mathematics. Engquist is the Computational and Applied Mathematics Chair I Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition was shared by former Member Michael Aschbacher (1978–79), Shaler Arthur Hanisch Professor of Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology; former Member Richard Lyons (1978, 1985–86, 1991), Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; former Member Ronald Solomon (2003), Professor of Mathematics at the Ohio State University; and Stephen Smith. The AMS Award for Distinguished Public Service was awarded to former Member William McCallum (1995–96), University Distinguished Professor and Head of the Mathematics Department at the University of Arizona. Joseph W. Dauben, former Member (1977–78) in the School of Historical Studies, received the AMS Albert Leon Whiteman Memorial Prize, which honors notable exposition that centers on the history of mathematics and that reflects exceptional mathematical scholarship. Dauben is Distinguished Professor of History and the History of Science at Herbert H. Lehman College and a member of the Ph.D. Program in History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.