Jean Bourgain Named 2010 Shaw Prize Laureate in Mathematics

Jean Bourgain, Professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study, has been awarded the 2010 Shaw Prize in Mathematics.

In announcing the Prizes in Hong Kong, the Shaw Prize Foundation cited Bourgain for his profound work in mathematical analysis and its application to partial differential equations, mathematical physics, com-binatorics, number theory, ergodic theory and theoretical computer science.

David Spergel, who shares this year’s Shaw Prize in Astronomy, is a former Member in the Institute’s School of Natural Sciences. Spergel, who was at the Institute from 1985 to 1988, is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University.

Peter Goddard, Director of the Institute, commented, “We are delighted that Bourgain’s remarkable contributions across a wide area of mathematical analysis have been recognized by the Shaw Prize. His achievements in solving many important, difficult and long-standing problems by introducing new mathematical techniques are unequalled today.”

The Shaw Prize, which consists of three annual awards of $1 million each in Astronomy, in Life Science and Medicine and in Mathematical Sciences, was established in 2002 by Sir Run Run Shaw, a Hong Kong film and television producer. The international award, administered and managed through the Shaw Foundation, was created to honor individuals, regardless of race, nationality and religious belief, who have achieved significant breakthroughs in academic and scientific research or application, and whose work has resulted in a positive and meaningful impact on mankind. The prizes will be presented at ceremonies in Hong Kong on September 28.

Bourgain’s work touches on many central topics of mathematical analysis: the geometry of Banach spaces, harmonic analysis, ergodic theory, spectral problems and nonlinear partial differential equations from mathematical physics and combinatorial number theory. His contributions solved longstanding problems in convexity theory and harmonic analysis such as Mahler’s conjecture and the lambda-p set problem. Bourgain’s work also has had important consequences in theoretical computer science and on exponential sums in analytic number theory. In Hamiltonian dynamics, he developed the theory of invariant Gibbs measures and quasi-periodicity for the Schrödinger equation.

Bourgain received his Ph.D. in 1977 and his Habilitation degree in 1979, both from the Free University of Brussels. He was a Research Fellow at the Belgium National Science Foundation before beginning his teaching career at the Free University of Brussels. He held Professorships at the University of Illinois and IHÉS (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques) before joining the Faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994.

The 1994 recipient of the Fields Medal, Bourgain’s other honors include theEmpain Prize (1983), the A. De Leeuw Damry-Bourlart Prize (1985), the Langevin Prize (1985), the E. Cartan Prize (1990), the Ostrowski Prize (1991) and Vernadsky Golden Medal (2010). Bourgain is a Foreign Member of the Académie des Sciences in France, the Polish Academy, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europeae.

Previous Shaw Prize Recipients Affiliated with the Institute

Since the inauguration of the Shaw Prize in 2004, one or more of the recipients each year have been affiliated with the Institute. Faculty members who have received the prize include Peter Goldreich, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, who was awarded the prize in Astronomy in 2007, and Robert Langlands, Professor Emeritus in the School of Mathematics, who shared the Mathematics prize with Richard Taylor in 2007. In 2004, the late geometer Shiing-Shen Chern, former Member (1943–46, 1954–55, 1964–65) in the Institute’s School of Mathematics, was recognized for his lifetime of achievement. Additional former Members who have received the prize include: P. James Peebles (Astronomy, 2004); Andrew J. Wiles, also an Institute Trustee (Mathematics 2005); David Mumford (Mathematics, 2006); Ludwig Faddeev (Mathematics, 2008); Frank Shu (Astronomy, 2009) and Simon Donaldson (Mathematics, 2009), who shared the prize with Clifford Taubes.

About the Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support curiosity-driven research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Science. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by a permanent Faculty of approximately 30, and it ensures the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.

The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Its more than 6,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Thirty-three Nobel Laureates and 40 out of 56 Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of the Wolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute.