MSRI Receives Funds to Increase Public Awareness of Mathematics, Gets New Director

May 18, 2007

The Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), in Berkeley, Calif., has received a $10 million endowment to, among other things, spread the word about the centrality of mathematics through public outreach programs, institute officials say.

The donation has come from the Simons Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by billionaire mathematician James H. Simons.

"Public outreach," said MSRI Director — and MAA member —David Eisenbud, "is intended to raise people's awareness of how beautiful and important mathematics is and how it's related to the rest of our culture." After heading MSRI for ten years, Eisenbud will be stepping down as director on July 31, 2007.

Half of the endowment will fund the Eisenbud Endowed Professorship, which will support visiting professors and postdoctorate mathematicians at MSRI. Now 25 years old, MSRI is known for hosting Fields medalists and supporting research in numerous areas, including dynamical systems and global warming models. The remaining $5 million will be for unrestricted endowment and must be matched by other contributors to MSRI over a period of five years.

Jim Sotiros, MSRI's director of development, called the endowment — the largest in the institute's history — a "great investment in math research."

Effective August 1, the new director of MSRI will be Robert L. Bryant, who currently holds the Juanita M. Kreps Chair in Mathematics at Duke University. He will serve for five years.

Charles Fefferman, chair of the Board of Trustees of MSRI, called Bryant a "brilliant mathematician" who has "very broad interests in science and culture as well." A differential geometer, Bryant has research interests in exterior differential systems and the geometry of differential equations, as well as their applications to Riemannian geometry, special holonomy, and mathematical physics.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2002, Bryant was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in early May.

Source: The Daily Californian, May 10, 2007; MSRI