NAS Will Honor Two Mathematicians for Scientific Contributions

February 8, 2008

During Mathematics Awareness Month this year, the National Academy of Sciences will be presenting awards recognizing extraordinary scientific achievement. Among the winners who will be receiving awards on April 27 in Washington, D.C., are two mathematicians.

The NAS Award for Initiatives in Research will go to Anna C. Gilbert (University of Michigan) for contributions to computational science and applied mathematics. She has been singled out for devising "innovative algorithms using wavelets and sampling techniques and their impact on data analysis and sparse approximation." This $15,000 award recognizes young scientists whose research is likely to lead to new capabilities for human benefit. The annual prize was established in 1981 by AT&T Bell Laboratories in honor of William O. Baker, and is supported by Alcatel-Lucent.

The NAS Award in Mathematics--a $5,000 prize given every four years for excellence in published mathematical research--goes to Clifford H. Taubes (Harvard University). He is being honored "for groundbreaking work relating to Seiberg-Witten and Gromov-Witten invariants of symplectic 4-manifolds, and his proof of Weinstein conjecture for all contact 3-manifolds." This award was established by the AMS and has been awarded since 1988.

Source: Medical News Today