Hebrew University's Alexander Lubotzky Will Be Keynote Speaker at 2011 JMM

November 30, 2010 

For the first time in the history of Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM), an Israeli mathematician—Alexander Lubotzky—will give the keynote address.

Lubotzky, of the Einstein Institute of Mathematics at Hebrew University, will give three lectures, known as the Colloquium Lectures, on the topic, “Expander Graphs in Pure and Applied Mathematics.”

The Joint Mathematics Meetings are an annual conference hosted by the Mathematical Association of American and the American Mathematical Society. Six thousand attendees are expected to attend this year's Meetings in New Orleans in January 2011.

Born in Tel Aviv, Lubotzky studied mathematics at Bar-Ilan University, where he earned his BA and Ph. D. He has served as head of the mathematics department at Hebrew University, and has been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago, with regular visits at Columbia and Yale.

Lubotzky has published three books and more than 100 articles, and has won several awards, including the Erdős Prize in Mathematics in 1990. In 2006, he received an honorary degree from the University of Chicago for his contribution to modern mathematics. He also served as a member of Knesset for the Third Way political party between 1996 and 1999.

In another first, Lubotzky convinced the MAA and the AMS to break with tradition and move one of the lectures, originally scheduled for a Saturday, to Sunday, so that he would not have to work on Shabbat.

Official Site of the 2011 Joint Mathematics Meetings

Source: Israel National News (November 23, 2010)