Second NYU Winner of “Nobel Prize” of Mathematics In Three Years
Second NYU Winner of “Nobel Prize” of Mathematics In Three Years
Srinivasa S.R.Varadhan, a professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences since 1966, was today awarded the Abel Prize in Mathematics by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for “his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviations,” which the Academy characterized as “hugely influential” and lauded for its “great conceptual strength and ageless beauty.” He is expected to receive the Abel Prize from His Majesty, King Harald V of Norway, in Oslo on May 22nd. The honor is accompanied by a prize of $850,000.
For a Publications quality image of Professor Varadhan, please follow this link: Srinivasa Varadhan Publications Photo
PHOTO CREDIT: Cheryl Sylivant
This is the second time in three years that an NYU mathematician has been the recipient of the Abel Pize: in 2005, Professor Peter Lax of the Courant Institute was awarded the Abel.
Professor Srinivasa Varadhan, who is known as Raghu, is the Frank J. Gould Professor of Science and professor of mathematics at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He first came to Courant as a post-doctoral fellow in 1963 and has spent his entire professional life there, serving two terms as its director (1980-1984, and 1992-94).
NYU President John Sexton said, “We are so happy and proud of Raghu. Not only is he an outstanding scholar, he is also a kind and wonderful colleague, a devoted teacher, and an exemplary University citizen,’ serving with dedication and professionalism as director of the Courant Institute and on such bodies as the University Senate. This distinction is a well-deserved honor for a faculty member whose modesty and discretion are almost as great as his scholarly contributions. In the time that Raghu has been at NYU, our University has changed a great deal, but it is the persistent presence of scholars such as he that has enabled us to build NYU into what it is today and to continue to attract top scholars and researchers to our midst. I ask the entire NYU community to join me in congratulating Raghu.”
David McLaughlin, NYU’s Provost and former director of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, said, “I have known Raghu personally for many years as a colleague and friend, and I would like to offer him my most enthusiastic congratulations; the Abel Committee could not have made a more worthy choice. The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences enjoys a superb reputation in the scientific community for the caliber of the scholars it attracts, the quality of their research, and the influence of their work in so many fields where mathematics is applied. This award - the second time in three years that a faculty member at Courant has been so honored - is a wonderful recognition of the Institute’s commitment to excellence in the mathematical sciences, and a wonderful reflection on NYU. But most importantly, the award rightly acknowledges the importance and depth of Raghu’s contributions to probability theory and to science.”
Leslie Greengard, the director of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, said, “It is wonderful to hear that Raghu Varadhan has been awarded the 2007 Abel prize. His work is deep, beautiful, and incredibly important, having laid the foundation for much of modern probability theory. Raghu is also one of those rare individuals who works tirelessly on behalf of his students, on behalf of all his colleagues at Courant and NYU, and on behalf of the international mathematics community.”
Professor Varadhan - a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society and the Third World Academy of Sciences - has been the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Birkhoff Prize (1994), the Margaret and Herman Sokol Award of NYU’s Faculty of Arts and Science (1995), and the American Mathematical Society’s Leroy Steele Prize (1996), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Indian Academy of Sciences. He received his B.Sc. honors degree and M.A. from Madras University, and his Ph.D. from the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta.
In awarding the prize, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters cited Professor Varadhan’s crucial work on probability theory. The Academy said of his development of his theory of large deviations that it “provides a unifying and efficient method for clarifying a rich variety of phenomena arising in complex stochastic systems, in fields as diverse as quantum field theory, statistical physics, population dynamics, econometrics and finance, and traffic engineering. It has also greatly expanded our ability to use computers to simulate and analyze the occurrence of rare events. Over the last four decades, the theory of large deviations has become a cornerstone of modern probability, both pure and applied.” Other important and outstanding scholarship they cited was his joint work with Daniel Stroock on developing a martingale method for characterizing diffusion processes, and his joint work with Maozheng Guo and George Papanicolau on gradient models, work Professor Varadhan subsequently extended to handle non-gradient models.
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