Courant's Naor Receives 2008 European Mathematical Society Prize

Assaf Naor, an associate professor in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, has received a 2008 European Mathematical Society (EMS) Prize, which is given every four years at the European Congresses of Mathematics. Naor, one of ten mathematicians recognized this year, received the award at a summer ceremony in Amsterdam.
    The prizes recognize distinguished contributions in mathematics by researchers 35 years old and under. Naor received the honor for his “groundbreaking contributions to three mathematical fields: functional analysis, the theory of algorithms, and combinatorics,” the selection committee said. Combinatorics, a branch of pure mathematics, examines discrete objects and, because of its value in studying data structures, is employed in computer science.
    Naor is considered the leading architect of the modern theory of non-linear functional analysis, which has become an essential tool in mathematical computer science.

—James Devitt