NYU mathemetician Mikhail Gromov named winner of Abel Prize

Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov, a professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences since 1996, was today awarded the Abel Prize in Mathematics by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for “his revolutionary contributions to geometry.” In its announcement, the Academy described Gromov as “one of the leading mathematicians of our time” whose work “will continue to be a source of inspiration for many future mathematical discoveries.” He is expected to receive the Abel Prize from His Majesty, King Harald V of Norway, in Oslo on May 19. The honor is accompanied by a prize of NOK 6,000,000 or approximately $950,000.

This is the third time in five years that an NYU mathematician has been the recipient of the Abel Pize. Professor Peter Lax of the Courant Institute was awarded the Abel in 2005 and Courant Professor Srinivasa S.R.Varadhan was selected in 2007. Gromov is also a professor at France’s Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques. The Abel Prize recognizes contributions of extraordinary depth and influence to the mathematical sciences and has been awarded annually since 2003.

NYU President John Sexton said, “The defining characteristic of a great university is the excellence of its faculty. The bestowing of the Abel Prize in Mathematics on our colleague Mikhail Gromov exemplifies the truly outstanding quality of scholarship to be found at Courant and throughout NYU. We are proud of him — not only for this extraordinary recognition of his achievements as a mathematician, but also for how it reflects on NYU’s commitment to academic excellence.”

Provost David McLaughlin said, “On behalf of the entire NYU faculty, I offer my congratulations to my colleague Mikhail Gromov. I was director of the Courant Institute at the time he was recruited to NYU; his supreme talents as a scholar were immediately and wholly evident, as his record of honors and awards — now crowned by the Abel Prize — so clearly attest. While this award recognizes the many deep and important contributions he has made to geometry during his career, we should be mindful of the recent contributions he has made to biology. We are very happy for him, and very proud to have him as a member of our faculty, whose high caliber he so powerfully represents.”

Leslie Greengard, the Director of NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, said, “We are delighted to learn that Misha Gromov has been awarded the Abel Prize. He has been an inspiration to colleagues and students here and to mathematicians around the world. His unique viewpoint has revolutionized geometry, topology, group theory and their interplay. The honor is richly deserved.”

Gromov, 65, is the Jay Gould Professor of Mathematics at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Born December 23, 1943, in Boksitogorsk, USSR, Gromov received his masters (1965) and doctoral (1969) degrees from Leningrad University, where he also completed his doctoral thesis in 1973 and served as an assistant professor from 1967 to 1974. A French citizen since 1992, Gromov has been a professor at the State University of New York-Stony Brook (1974-1981), Université de Paris VI (1981-1982), and the University of Maryland, College Park (1991-1996). He joined the faculty at Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, where he is a permanent professor, in 1982.

Gromov has received many distinguished international awards, including the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (2002), the Balzan Prize (1999), the Leroy P. Steele Prize (1997), the Lobatchewski Medal (1997), and the Wolf Prize (1993). He is a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as a member of l’Académie française de Sciences.

In awarding the prize, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters cited Gromov’s work in Riemannian geometry, which developed from the study of curved surfaces and their higher dimensional spaces. It has applications in a range of areas, including the measurement of heavy stars and black holes, where space is not three-dimensional, but, rather, curved and bent.

The Academy noted that “Gromov played a decisive role in the creation of modern global Riemannian geometry. His solutions of important problems in global geometry relied on new general concepts, such as the convergence of Riemannian manifolds and a compactness principle, which now bears his name (‘Gromov’s Compactness Theorem’).”

The Academy also recognized Gromov as a founder of the field of global symplectic geometry, an outgrowth of classical Hamiltonian mechanics, which describes the motion of particles. Symplectic geometry has application to many areas, including mathematical physics, dynamical systems, and low-dimensional topology, with the potential for discovering and understanding new conserved quantities, such as energy or momentum, that don’t change as a system evolves over time.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters bases its selection of Abel Laureates on the recommendation by the Abel Committee, which consists of five internationally recognized mathematicians. For more information about Gromov, his achievements, and the Abel Prize, visit the Abel Prize website: www.abelprisen.no/en/

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