News

Javad Mashreghi named to the 2024 class of AMS Fellows

Posted Friday, December 15, 2023

Congratulations to Professor Javad Mashreghi (Université Laval) who has been named to the 2024 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS).

The CRM-ISM-AMQ 2023 Prize is awarded to Ashay Burungale, Francesc Castella, Christopher Skinner and Ye Tian

Posted Wednesday, December 13, 2023

We are delighted to announce the winners of the CRM-ISM-AMQ 2023 Prize. It will be awarded to Ashay Burungale (UT Austin), Francesc Castella (UCSB), Christopher Skinner (Princeton) and Ye Tian (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences) for their paper “p∞-Selmer groups and rational points on CM elliptic curves”, published in the special issue of Annales Mathématiques du Québec in honor of Bernadette Perrin-Riou.

 In recent years, an important breakthrough in the study of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is the so-called p-converse theorem pioneered by Chris Skinner. The BSD conjecture predicts that the algebraic and analytic ranks of an elliptic curve are equal. The p-converse theorem states that if the algebraic rank given by the Selmer group of an elliptic curve is 1, then the analytic rank is 1, which proves the BSD conjecture for a large family of elliptic curves. The article studies a new method that generalizes previous results to a number of new settings. It is also the building block of further generalizations to totally real fields announced by the authors. This article can be an important steppingstone for many further results in the study of the BSD conjecture.

Grants for the International Day of Mathematics

Posted Tuesday, November 28, 2023

The AMQ, the CRM and the ISM are offering grants of up to $500 to organize activities in Quebec related to the International Day of Mathematics 2024, whose theme is Playing with Math! The grant program is open to all and it is expected that activities be hosted by institutions and organized in collaboration. The program is aimed at "general public" activities, for example, events targeting CEGEP, high school or primary school students.

Grants will be awarded starting February 1, 2024 from applications received by that date, and then on an ongoing basis until February 29, 2024 or until the grant budget is exhausted. With this program, we want to encourage activities throughout Quebec!

To apply, simply complete the form available by clicking this link.

We take this opportunity to invite you to become a member of the AMQ, if you are not already: see www.amq.math.ca/devenez-membre/

If you have any questions, you can write to ism@uqam.ca.

Matilde Lalin named a fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM)

Posted Wednesday, November 15, 2023

The ISM offers its sincere congratulations to Professor Matilde Lalin (Université de Montréal) who has been named a 2024 fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) "for her ongoing contributions to the AWM, most notably her leadership role in the Women in Numbers Network and considerable contributions in its growth; her service to the International Mathematics Union Committee for Women; and for her ardent efforts towards making conferences more welcoming and accessible for researchers by actively advocating for childcare resources."

CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowships. Deadline to apply: November 10, 2023

Posted Thursday, September 7, 2023

Every year, the ISM, the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and researchers from the member universities welcome a certain number of postdoctoral fellows. All candidates interested in working with a mathematics research team from Quebec are invited to submit an application to the CRM-ISM competition.

ISM Discovery Schools Call for Proposals - deadline November 6, 2023

Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2023

The ISM will sponsor several 2-day to 1-week long Discovery Schools for graduate students, and possibly advanced undergraduate students, to take place any time in 2024. The schools aim to present new exciting progress in mathematical sciences. A discovery school should consist of a special series of lectures or mini-courses with a specific theme not found in regular university courses, to which exercise sessions or other student interactive events can be added. The objective is to train students in a particular topic and, ideally, to provide a model of transition to independent research in the mathematical sciences.

The amount of ISM funding rewarded will depend primarily on the length of the workshop, the number of expected participants, and the number of external speakers.The maximum amount of funding awarded to each school will be $7,500.

Eligible expenses are travel expenses and lodging for invited, non-local, lecturers, or, in case these expenses are covered by other sources, travel expenses and lodging for non-local students interested in attending. Postdocs are encouraged to get involved, but they are ineligible for support. The school will be free, so no registration fee should be charged to the students.  The ISM will provide a website for each school and can provide help with the organizational logistics. 

A complete application consists of:

  • A 2-page scientific proposal outlining the subject of the school and its scientific importance, the names of the organizers, the aimed audience and its size, the proposed speakers/lecturers indicating, if possible, those confirmed to come if the event is held, the dates and venue where the event is envisaged, if other funds are secured or expected, and, if postdocs are involved, a brief description of their contribution to the event.
  • A proposed day-by-day schedule of activities/courses with tentative titles of courses and lecturers.
  • An outline of the preliminary budget. 

Deadline: November 6, 2023

Application submission: Please send the application by email to  haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca.

Koukoulopoulos and Maynard awarded 2023 Frontiers of Science Award

Posted Thursday, August 24, 2023

Dimitris Koukoulopoulos (Université de Montréal) and James Maynard (University of Oxford) are recipients of a 2023 Frontiers of Science Award for their paper entitled “On the Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture” which was published in the journal Annals of Mathematics in 2020.

Dimitris Koukoulopoulos is a member of the ISM and CICMA and James Maynard is a former CRM-ISM postdoctoral fellow.

The award was presented at the first International Congress of Basic Science held in Beijing from July 16-28.

Alexandre Girouard named Editor-in-Chief of the Annales mathématiques du Québec

Posted Monday, August 7, 2023

We are very happy to announce that Professor Alexandre Girouard began his three-year term as Editor-in-Chief of the Annales mathématiques du Québec on July 1st, 2023.

 Alexandre Girouard has been a professor of mathematics at Université Laval since 2013. He obtained his PhD in 2008 at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Iosif Polterovich and Marlène Frigon. He specializes in spectral geometry and his research interests deal with problems of isoperimetric type for eigenvalues of the Laplacian and the Dirichlet-Neumann operator on Riemannian manifolds. He was Deputy Director for scientific activities at the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) from 2020 to 2023. He has been a member of the editorial board of the Annales mathématiques du Québec since 2020.

Christiane Rousseau named Officer of the Ordre national du Québec

Posted Friday, June 16, 2023

Congratulations to Christiane Rousseau (Université de Montréal), who has been named an Officer of the Ordre national du Québec.

Christiane Rousseau is an international pioneer in the field of mathematics. In parallel, she has been involved in research and training in dynamical systems, popularizing mathematics and mobilizing the international mathematical community. She was President of the Canadian Mathematical Society from 2002 to 2004, then Vice-President of the International Mathematical Union from 2011-2014. She was the instigator of the 2013 World Year of Mathematics for Planet Earth, under the patronage of UNESCO, whose aim was to advance research and highlight the role of mathematics in addressing global issues. In 2018, her contributions earned her the inaugural Bertrand Russell Prize. Awarded by the American Mathematical Society, this recognition shines a spotlight on her visionary leadership. Christiane Rousseau spearheaded UNESCO's proclamation of March 14, 2023 as the International Day of Mathematics for which she coordinates celebrations in over 90 countries. In Quebec, she has worked to train the next generation of secondary school teachers. She co-wrote the volume Mathématiques et Technologie, which introduces modern technological applications of mathematics. This book has been translated into several languages and is used worldwide. Christiane Rousseau has organized mathematics camps for cégep students run by the Association mathématique du Québec (AMQ), and gives numerous lectures at CEGEPs. She is the most prolific author of Accromath magazine.

Niky Kamran and Hershy Kisilevsky named 2023 CMS Fellows

Posted Thursday, June 15, 2023

ISM members Niky Kamran (McGill) and Hershy Kisilevsky (Concordia) are named members of the Canadian Mathematical Society’s (CMS) 2023 Class of Fellows.

The Fellowship recognizes CMS members who have made excellent contributions to mathematical research, teaching, or exposition; as well as having distinguished themselves in service to Canada’s mathematical community.

The 2023 Class of Fellows will be recognized at the CMS Winter Meeting in December 2023.

Directed REAding in Mathematics and Statistics (DREAMS)

Posted Tuesday, June 6, 2023

The Institut des sciences mathématiques invites proposals from graduate students at the ISM member universities for the Directed REAding in Mathematics and Statistics Program. The program aims to create a framework of one-on-one mentoring of undergraduate students by graduate students at their respective departments.  There is no fixed schedule and format of mentoring, but weekly in-person meetings are considered usual. The undergraduate students are also invited to make a final presentation at the end of the semester and to write a report on the material they have learned.

The program is expected to take place during the Winter trimester with the necessary preparations (e.g. soliciting applications from undergraduate students and pairing students and mentors) to be done in the Fall.  The program is run exclusively by graduate students.
 
The goals of the program are:
 
    •    Provide a fun and welcoming environment for undergraduate students to learn the material of their interest beyond the standard curriculum.
    •    To encourage undergraduate students of diverse backgrounds to pursue advanced topics in mathematics and statistics in a friendly setting of peer supervision.
    •    To facilitate interactions between undergraduate and graduate students after two years of the pandemic.
    •    To provide graduate students with an opportunity to enrich their teaching and organizational experience by participating in the program as mentors and coordinators.
 
The application should include:
    •    Names of 2-3 coordinators of the directed reading program. The coordinators must be graduate students registered at the same department at one of the ISM member universities.
    •    Names of prospective mentors and proposed reading topics.
    •    Proposed schedule and output (student presentations, written reports, etc.)
    •    A proposed budget
 
Selected proposals will be awarded grants of up to $3,000 to be used at the coordinators’ discretion for expenses such as scholarships, travel grants, equipment, or catering related to the program.
 
The deadline for applications is September 5, 2023.

Matt Bowen awarded the 2023 Carl Herz Prize

Posted Monday, May 29, 2023

We are very pleased to inform you that the 2023 Carl Herz Prize shall be awarded to Matt Bowen, a doctoral student at McGill University. Bowen has been awarded the Prize for his preprint Monochromatic products and sums in 2-colorings of , a new proof of the special case of Hindman’s conjecture when we have two colours.

 Matt Bowen came to McGill University in 2019 where he is completing a Ph.D. under the supervision of Marcin Sabok and Anush Tserunyan. Previously, he completed a Master's degree and a B.Sc. in Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University.

 With four articles published or submitted as well as six preprints, he has already demonstrated that he is a creative and independent mathematician, well-known in the field of measurable combinatorics and Ramsey theory. His work was recently cited in Quanta magazine, and a separate article devoted to his research entitled “Coloring by Numbers Reveals Arithmetic Patterns in Fractions”(https://bit.ly/40RHH2s) , has just been published..

 Matt will be finishing his PhD this summer and then moving to the United Kingdom where he will be a postdoctoral research fellow at Oxford University working under the supervision of Ben Green.

 

Johanna Nešlehová Receives the Krieger-Nelson Prize

Posted Monday, March 27, 2023

It is a great pleasure to inform you that the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) has selected Professor Johanna Nešlehová as the 28th recipient of the Krieger-Nelson Prize. This prize, which was first awarded in 1995, recognizes outstanding contributions to research by a woman or female-identifying mathematician working in Canada.

Johanna, who completed her PhD in 2004, joined McGill in 2009 and is a Full Professor since 2020. Her research interests cover a broad spectrum of statistical topics such as dependence modeling, extreme-value theory, multivariate analysis, and nonparametric statistics. Her work, which makes heavy use of empirical process theory and asymptotic methods, has found numerous and important applications in risk management, biostatistics, and environmental sciences.

Before 2023, the Krieger-Nelson Prize had only been awarded once to a statistician (Nancy Reid, 1995). The prize is named after Cecilia Krieger (1894-1974), the first woman to earn a PhD in mathematics from a Canadian university, and Evelyn Nelson (1943-1987), a prolific researcher in universal algebra.
 

The Krieger-Nelson Prize ceremony will take place at the CMS Summer Meeting in Ottawa, June 2-5, 2023, where Johanna will give a plenary lecture.

2023 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize awarded to Christian Genest

Posted Friday, January 20, 2023

The ISM warmly congratulates Professor Christian Genest of McGill University, and former director of the ISM, who has been awarded the 2023 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize.

Christian Genest is one of the leading statisticians in Canada, whose work has had dual impact on both theory and real-world applications. He is best known for his contributions to multivariate analysis and was a pioneer in the expansive use of copula models in science. Together with a few close collaborators, he combined nonparametric methods and the asymptotic theory of empirical processes to design a broad array of rank-based inference tools for building, selecting, fitting, and validating stochastic models within this class. Additionally, Genest has also contributed to group decision making, prioritization techniques, multivariate extreme-value theory and, most recently, to space-time modeling of rare events in environmental science.

“Christian Genest is the whole package,” said the awards committee. “He has contributed fundamental and pioneering work in a wide range of problems focused on statistical theory. His work on copulas, in particular, has had significant impact on our understanding of the risks of rare and catastrophic events. Moreover, he is a prolific and successful advisor and multiple-time winner of best teacher award in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Université Laval.”

Christian Genest is a true team worker, quick to point out that his success is a direct result of having the right people around him, from his collaborators to his graduate students and entire family. In this vein, he made it clear that this award is the result of a joint effort and should be viewed as such.

“Research is a complex, long-term venture; it is increasingly difficult to get anything done alone. I like to motivate people and I was lucky to be able to build a team around me and draw expertise from those I’ve collaborated with for many years,” he said. “But our work is also part of a larger scientific agenda to which many others are contributing. To me, this award is mostly the recognition of the importance of our field and the impact of our contributions.”

Professor Genest will deliver the CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize Lecture at the Fields Institute on April 20, 2023.

The CRM-Fields-PIMS prize is the premier Canadian award for research achievements in the mathematical sciences. It is awarded jointly by the three largest Canadian mathematics institutes: the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) in Montréal, the Fields Institute in Toronto, and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) in Vancouver. This annual prize comes with a monetary award.

Press release: Fields Institute

Grants for the International Day of Mathematics

Posted Monday, December 19, 2022

The AMQ, the CRM and the ISM are offering grants of up to $500 to organize activities related to the International Day of Mathematics 2023, whose theme is Mathematics for everyone! The grant program is open to all and it is expected that activities be hosted by institutions and organized in collaboration. The program is aimed at "general public" activities, for example, events targeting CEGEP, high school or primary school students.

Grants will be awarded starting February 1, 2023 from applications received by that date, and then on an ongoing basis until February 28, 2023 or until the grant budget is exhausted. With this program, we want to encourage activities throughout Quebec!

To apply, simply complete the form available by clicking this link.

We take this opportunity to invite you to become a member of the AMQ, if you are not already: see www.amq.math.ca/devenez-membre/

If you have any questions, you can write to info@amq.math.ca or ism@uqam.ca.

2022 CRM-ISM-AMQ Prize awarded to Semyon Dyatlov

Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2022

We are pleased to announce that the 2022 CRM-ISM-AMQ Prize is awarded to Semyon Dyatlov (MIT) for the paper "Around quantum ergodicity"  published in  the special issue of the Annales Mathématiques du Québec in honour of Alexander Shnirelman's 75th birthday.

The paper provides a beautiful overview of the field of quantum ergodicity, from its origins to the cutting edge recent advances, to which the author has contributed in a major way. The survey starts with an outline of the proof of Shnirelman's theorem stating that the ergodicity of the geodesic flow  on a compact Riemannian manifold implies the equidistribution of almost all Laplace-Beltrami eigenfunctions at high energies. It proceeds by discussing various fascinating further developments, notably, in regard to the Rudnick-Sarnak quantum unique ergodicity conjecture, estimates on the entropy and support of semiclassical measures, and quantum ergodicity on noncompact manifolds and graphs. The paper is a wonderful read, and can serve as a concise and enticing introduction to the subject.

Semyon Dyatlov obtained his Ph.D. in 2013 at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the faculty at MIT he was a Clay Mathematical Institute research fellow. Professor Dyatlov is one of the world leaders in  the fields of microlocal analysis and quantum chaos. His research has been recognized by numerous awards and honours, including the International Association of Mathematical Physics Early Career Award, a Sloan fellowship and an invitation to speak at the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians.

ISM graduate, Yaiza Canzani, winner of the 2022 AWM Sadosky Research Prize in Analysis

Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2022

The ISM warmly congratulates former PhD student Yaiza Canzani for winning the 2022 AWM Sadosky Research Prize in Analysis in recognition of her outstanding contributions in spectral geometry and microlocal analysis.

For more information: https://awm-math.org/awards/awm-sadosky-research-prize/awm-sadosky-research-prize-2022/

ISM Discovery Schools Call for Proposals - deadline December 1, 2022

Posted Friday, September 2, 2022

The ISM will sponsor several 2-day to 1-week long Discovery Schools for graduate students, and possibly advanced undergraduate students, to take place any time in 2023. The schools aim to present new exciting progress in mathematical sciences. A discovery school should consist of a special series of lectures or mini-courses with a specific theme not found in regular university courses, to which exercise sessions or other student interactive events can be added. The objective is to train students in a particular topic and, ideally, to provide a model of transition to independent research in the mathematical sciences.

The amount of ISM funding rewarded will depend primarily on the length of the workshop, the number of expected participants, and the number of external speakers.The maximum amount of funding awarded to each school will be $5,000.

Eligible expenses are travel expenses and lodging for invited, non-local, lecturers, or, in case these expenses are covered by other sources, travel expenses and lodging for non-local students interested in attending. Postdocs are encouraged to get involved, but they are ineligible for support. The school will be free, so no registration fee should be charged to the students.  The ISM will provide a website for each school and can provide help with the organizational logistics. 

A complete application consists of:

- A 2-page scientific proposal outlining the subject of the school and its scientific importance, the names of the organizers, the aimed audience and its size, the proposed speakers/lecturers indicating, if possible, those confirmed to come if the event is held, the dates and venue where the event is envisaged, if other funds are secured or expected, and, if postdocs are involved, a brief description of their contribution to the event.
 - A proposed day-by-day schedule of activities/courses with tentative titles of courses and lecturers.
- An outline of the preliminary budget. 

Deadline: December 1, 2022

Application submission: Please send the application by email to haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca.

For questions or all other inquiries, please contact haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca.

2022-23 ISM Course Listings

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2022

Directed REAding in Mathematics and Statistics (DREAMS) program to be offered in three ISM universities

Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Graduate students from three ISM universities -- McGill, Laval University and UQAM -- will be offering the ISM-sponsored Directed REAding in Mathematics and Statistics (DREAMS) program as of the Winter 2023 semester. Entirely conceived, organized and run by graduate students, the program aims to create a framework of one-on-one mentoring of undergraduate students by graduate students in a relaxed setting. We wish the organizers much success!

Jacques Hurtubise, recipient of the 2022 David Borwein Award

Posted Thursday, August 4, 2022

The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) announced today that Jacques Hurtubise, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University, is the recipient of the 2022 David Borwein Distinguished Career Award for his “exceptional, continued, and broad contributions to mathematics”. He will receive his award and present a Prize Lecture at the CMS Winter meeting to be held in Toronto from December 2 to 5, 2022.

Jacques is the 5th recipient of this award established in 2004 to recognize individuals who have made a sustained outstanding contribution to Canadian mathematics. The award is named for David Borwein (1924-2021), a distinguished mathematician and former CMS President.

 For more details, see

https://cms.math.ca/news-item/hurtubise-2022-david-borwein-award/

Former CRM-ISM postdoctoral researcher James Maynard awarded the Fields Medal

Posted Tuesday, July 5, 2022

James Maynard today received a 2022 Fields Medal in Helsinki from the International Mathematical Union. The Fields medal is regarded as the top award in mathematical research. Up to four medals are presented every four years to researchers who are under 40 years old on January 1st of the year of the award, who have made the most important contributions in the world to mathematics.

Maynard received his PhD at Oxford in 2013 and then came to Montreal as a CRM-ISM postdoctoral researcher working under the guidance of Professor Granville, and established strong working relationships with Granville and Professor Koukoulopoulos of the Université de Montreal. After leaving Montreal he returned to Oxford where he soon became a full professor.

While at the CRM, Maynard proved two theorems that are cited as part of the reason he won his Fields medal; one developing a new method to show there are infinitely many pairs of primes differing by no more than 400 (and indeed there are patterns of m primes in bounded length intervals, for any m>1), another showing that there are far longer gaps between primes than had been known (and so winning a large monetary prize from the late Paul Erdos). Subsequently, he proved several spectacular theorems, including showing that there are infinitely many primes with no digit 7 in their decimal expansion (or any other given digit), and resolving the Duffin-Schaefer conjecture, jointly with Dimitris Koukoulopoulos, clarifying how well most real numbers can be approximated by fractions.

Maynard’s work is remarkable for the depth and importance of his breakthroughs coupled with a clarity of thought and reasoning, turning what had seemed impossibly hard, and long unresolved, questions into methods that, after the fact, seem “obvious” and will be included in every textbook.

Maynard will be back in Montreal as a plenary speaker at a CRM conference from September 5-9.

The CRM and the ISM congratulate all four Fields medal laureates: Maryna Viazovska, Hugo Duminil-Copin, June Huh and James Maynard.

David Stephens awarded the 2022 Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada

Posted Monday, May 30, 2022

The Statistical Society of Canada announced today that David Stephens, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University, is the 2022 recipient of the Gold Medal in research. This prestigious award is bestowed upon a person who has made outstanding contributions to statistics, or to probability, either to mathematical developments or in applied work. It is intended to honor current leaders in their field.

 The SSC citation reads: “To David A. Stephens, for extraordinary research in Bayesian computation and statistical theory, genetics, and causal inference, including applications to Markov Chain Monte Carlo and change-point detection methods; for extensive editorial work and administrative leadership; for outstanding teaching and mentoring within the statistical community.”

 For more details, see

https://reporter.mcgill.ca/david-a-stephens-named-ssc-gold-medalist/

Scholarships for Outstanding PhD Candidates. Deadline: August 8 2022

Posted Friday, May 27, 2022

The ISM will award several one-term $7,500 scholarships to PhD students completing their last calendar year of studies. The scholarships shall be awarded during the Fall 2022 or Winter 2023 semester. This award is intended to support outstanding doctoral students so they can concentrate entirely on their thesis writing and defence preparation.

Since the primary goal of this scholarship is to provide the recipients with the necessary time to complete their research, please note that:

  • Students who are already recipients of a doctoral fellowship from a major funding agency, which allows them to concentrate entirely on their studies, are not eligible to apply.
  • Recipients of the scholarship for Outstanding PhD candidates are not permitted to teach a university course during the tenure of the award.

To apply, all course work and comprehensive exams must be completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal must have been accepted by the thesis advisor and/or committee.

Deadline for Applications: Monday, August 8, 2022.

A complete application includes:

  • a brief cover letter (indicating the term applying for, the thesis subject and the name of the thesis director),
  • an academic CV,
  • a copy of all graduate (PhD) transcripts,
  • a letter from the graduate program director confirming eligibility (all course work and comprehensive exams are completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal has been accepted by the advisor and/or thesis committee) and;
  • a letter of reference from the thesis advisor detailing the progress of the student while clearly stating the expected date of graduation or thesis defence (month and year are sufficient).

Please submit applications to haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca.

Sami Douba the 2022 Carl Herz prize winner

Posted Friday, April 29, 2022

We are very pleased to inform you that the 2022 Carl Herz Prize shall be awarded to Sami Douba, a doctoral student at McGill University. Mr. Douba will present his work at the ISM Student Colloquium, to be held May 27-29 at Laval University.

 Sami Douba undertook his PhD at McGill University in 2018 under the supervision of Piotr Przytycki and Dmitry Jakobson. Previously, he completed a master's degree and a B.Sc. in Honours Mathematics at McGill University.

 Douba has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for his article Proper CAT(0) actions of unipotent-free linear groups which has been submitted for publication. With four articles published or submitted, he has already manifested independence and versatility as a mathematician. His work has drawn the attention of the international community, and he has been invited to give many talks on his work, including at Université Paris-Saclay, Cambridge, Oxford, and the ENS, Paris.

 Throughout his time at McGill he has been an active member of the Quebec mathematics community as organizer of the Geometric Group Theory Seminar, co-organizer of the Mathematics and Statistics Graduate Student Seminar, and co-organizer of the virtual summer school series Geometric Group Theory without Boundaries.

 Sami will be finishing his PhD this summer and then moving to Paris where he has been awarded a Huawei Young Talents Program Fellowship at the IHES.

Directed REAding in Mathematics and Statistics (DREAMS)

Posted Wednesday, March 23, 2022

The Institut des sciences mathématiques invites proposals from graduate students at the ISM member universities for the Directed REAding in Mathematics and Statistics Program. The program aims to create a framework of one-on-one mentoring of undergraduate students by graduate students at their respective departments.  There is no fixed schedule and format of mentoring, but weekly in-person meetings are considered usual. The undergraduate students are also invited to make a final presentation at the end of the semester and to write a report on the material they have learned.

The program is expected to take place during the Winter trimester with the necessary preparations (e.g. soliciting applications from undergraduate students and pairing students and mentors) to be done in the Fall.  The program is run exclusively by graduate students.

The goals of the program are:

  • To provide a fun and welcoming environment for undergraduate students to learn the material of their interest beyond the standard curriculum.
  • To encourage undergraduate students of diverse backgrounds to pursue advanced topics in mathematics and statistics in a friendly setting of peer supervision.
  • To facilitate interactions between undergraduate and graduate students after two years of the pandemic.
  • To provide graduate students with an opportunity to enrich their teaching and organizational experience by participating in the program as mentors and coordinators.

The first program of this kind was introduced at the University of Chicago: https://math.uchicago.edu/~drp/.   In past years, it has also been implemented by graduate students at McGill University:  https://www.math.mcgill.ca/gsams/drp/, as well as in some other universities in North America.   

The application should include:

  • Names of 2-3 coordinators of the directed reading program. The coordinators must be graduate students registered at the same department at one of the ISM member universities.  
  • Names of prospective mentors and proposed reading topics. 
  • Proposed schedule and output (student presentations, written reports, etc.)

Selected proposals will be awarded grants of up to 3,000 $ to be used at the coordinators’ discretion for expenses such as scholarships, travel grants, equipment, or catering related to the program. While a provisional budget would be helpful, it is not required.

The deadline for applications is August 1, 2022

ISM-SMS institutional partnership

Posted Monday, March 14, 2022

The Institut des sciences mathématiques is pleased to announce that starting next year it will join the CRM, the Fields Institute, the PIMS and the MSRI as one of the main institutional partners of the Séminaire de mathématiques supérieures (SMS).  The SMS is an annual summer school in pure and applied mathematics that has taken place since 1961. It is one of the oldest and most recognized mathematical summer schools in the world, which attracts dozens of graduate students and postdocs from across the globe. It usually takes place in Montréal but is also regularly hosted in Toronto and Vancouver. The ISM has been contributing towards the success of the SMS for the past decade, and the institutional partnership will help further promote this collaboration. For more information on the SMS, see http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/sms/index_e.php

Joint CRM-ISM initiative in support of mathematicians in distress

Posted Monday, March 7, 2022

Prompted by the events in Ukraine, the Centre de recherches mathématiques and the Institut des sciences mathématiques offer a program in support of mathematicians in distress due to war, oppression, and persecution.  The objective is to provide a temporary safe haven to international researchers in mathematical and statistical sciences, so that they can continue pursuing their high-quality research and training goals in a secure and welcoming environment.

Applications are open to researchers at all levels, from graduate students to senior faculty.  Financial support can take the form of scholarships in ISM partner universities, travel grants for participation in CRM activities, and visiting fellowships for collaboration with CRM researchers.  To apply for this program, it is required to submit a cover letter explaining the particular circumstances of the application, including the specific form of support that is being applied for, and the names and e-mail addresses of three references. Indicating potential contacts among the CRM researchers would be helpful. The cover letter should be accompanied by a short (1-2 pages) description of the research and study intentions, as well as a complete CV containing a list of publications. Applications in PDF format should be sent to  nominations@crm.umontreal.ca with the subject line “Support for mathematicians in distress”.

SMS 2024 - Call for proposals

Posted Thursday, March 3, 2022

The steering board of the "Séminaire de Mathématiques Supérieures'' (SMS) invites letters of intent from potential organizers of the 2024 summer school. The letter (suggested length: 1-2 pages) should contain the proposed title of the school, names and affiliations of the organizers, as well as a short description of proposed mini-courses and the names and affiliations of prospective lecturers.

The 2024 SMS is expected to be hosted by the CRM in Montreal.

The SMS is a high-level summer school in pure and applied mathematics that has been taking place annually since 1961. The usual duration of the school is two weeks. The main institutional partners of the SMS are the Centre de Recherches Mathematiques (Montréal), the Fields Institute (Toronto), the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences (Vancouver) and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (Berkeley). It also receives the support of the Institut des Sciences Mathématiques and of the Université de Montréal.

The selection of the winning proposal will be made by the steering board composed of Hélène Barcelo (MSRI), Octav Cornea (U de M and CRM), Henri Darmon (McGill), Deirdre Haskell (McMaster and Fields), Nilima Nigam (Simon Fraser) and Iosif Polterovich (U de M, SMS Director).

For more information on the school, please see the SMS web page.

The letters of intent will be accepted till May 31, 2022. The successful applicants will be asked to submit a full proposal which is due in September, 2022.

André Joyal to receive the 2022 CMS Jeffery-Williams Prize

Posted Thursday, February 24, 2022

Congratulations to Professor André Joyal who has been awarded the 2022 CMS Jeffrey-Williams Prize for his contributions to mathematical research. Professor Joyal will receive his prize and give a lecture at the 2022 CMS Summer meeting in June.

For more information

CRM Research grant for ISM courses given online

Posted Wednesday, February 23, 2022

To make the content of certain specialized ISM courses available to a broader audience, in particular potential students and collaborators, the CRM is offering a research grant of $2,000 to eligible professors who give their ISM courses on Zoom. The selected courses will be streamed live as well as recorded and available to a wide audience. The links for the Zoom and course materials will be available on the ISM website on the course page. The proposed courses could be scheduled during the fall 2022 or winter 2023 semester.

Conditions:
1) The university offering the course must agree to the terms, namely, that the course be offered on an online platform and that the content be available to a wide audience.

2) The course must be a specialized research course that is not offered every year.

Applications should be sent to ism@uqam.ca and include the course title and outline as well as a letter from the applicant’s department confirming that the university allows the course to be open to a wide audience.

The Research grant can be used to pay for all expenses that are eligible with a FRQNT grant.

Application deadline: August 1st, 2022

2022 Krieger-Nelson Prize is awarded to Matilde Lalín

Posted Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Congratulations to Professor Matilde Lalín (Université de Montréal who has been awarded the 2022 Krieger-Nelson Prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) for her outstanding contribution to Number Theory and related fields. The Krieger-Nelson Prize was first awarded in 1995 in recognition of outstanding contributions in the area of mathematical research by a female mathematician.

For more information

CRM-ISM-AMQ Prize awarded to Francesco Amoroso and Sinnou David

Posted Thursday, December 16, 2021

It is our pleasure to announce that the first CRM-ISM-AMQ prize for an outstanding publication in the Annales Mathématiques du Québec (AMQ) shall be awared to Francesco Amoroso and Sinnou David for their paper "Covolumes, unités, régulateur : conjectures de D. Bertrand et F. Rodriguez-Villegas".

For more information on the article, see here.

Francesco Amoroso: After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Pisa in 1986 and a Perfezionamento at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (1987-89), he was a lecturer at the University of Padua (1991-92), a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1992-93), an associate professor at the University of Pisa (1992-96), and a professor ordinario at the University of Turin (1996-99).  Since 1999, he has been a professor at the University of Caen, where he directed the mathematics laboratory from 2013 to 2018. 

Sinnou David: After completing his Ph.D. at the Pierre et Marie Curie University (Paris VI) in 1989 and a short post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Orsay, he joined the University of Paris VI as a lecturer.  He obtained his habilitation to direct research in 1995, and has been a professor there since 2006.  He was deputy director of the Institut mathématiques de Jussieu-Paris Rive-Gauche (2008-2012), deputy scientific director of the Institut national des sciences mathématiques et de leurs interactions (2012-2017), and has been very active in the mathematical cooperation between France and India.  He has been a visiting professor in many institutions in Europe, America and Asia.

Iosif Polterovich appointed Director of the ISM

Posted Wednesday, December 15, 2021

It is a great pleasure to inform you that Dr. Iosif Polterovich, professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Montreal, has been appointed director of the ISM as of January 1, 2022. He will serve a three-year term.

Iosif Polterovich received his MSc from Moscow State University in 1995 and his PhD in 2000 from the Weizmann Institute of Science. He has been a faculty member at  the Université de Montréal since 2002. Polterovich works mainly in geometric spectral theory, and he has been instrumental in making Québec one of the world centers in this area of mathematics.

His research contributions have brought him a number of recognitions, including the André-Aisenstadt Prize of the CRM (2006),  the Coxeter-James Prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society (2011), and a Canada Research Chair (Tier II, 2009-2019). Over the course of his career, Polterovich  has supervised more than two dozen Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows, including several leading figures of the new generation of researchers in geometric spectral theory.  In addition to his duties as director of the ISM, Polterovich will continue serving as editor-in-chief of the Annales Mathématiques du Québec and director of the annual summer school Séminaire des mathématiques supérieures.

ISM Discovery Schools Call for Proposals - deadline January 14, 2022

Posted Friday, October 22, 2021

The ISM will once again sponsor several 2-day to 1-week long Discovery Schools for graduate students, and possibly advanced undergraduate students, to take place any time in 2022. The schools aim to present new exciting progress in mathematical sciences. A discovery school should consist of a special series of lectures or mini-courses with a specific theme not found in regular university courses, to which exercise sessions or other student interactive events can be added. The objective is to train students in a particular topic and, ideally, to provide a model of transition to independent research in the mathematical sciences.

The amount of ISM funding rewarded will depend primarily on the length of the workshop, the number of expected participants, and the number of external speakers.The maximum amount of funding awarded to each school will be $5,000.

Eligible expenses are travel expenses and lodging for invited, non-local, lecturers, or, in case these expenses are covered by other sources, an honorarium, and travel expenses and lodging for non-local students interested in attending. Postdocs are encouraged to get involved, but they are ineligible for support. No registration fee should be charged to the students and organizers are encouraged to not use the ISM funds for printing or other materials.  The ISM will provide a website for each school and can help with the logistics of the organization. 

A complete application consists of:

- A 2-page scientific proposal outlining the subject of the school and its scientific importance, the names of the organizers, the aimed audience and its size, the proposed speakers/lecturers indicating, if possible, those confirmed to come if the event is held, the dates and venue where the event is envisaged, if other funds are secured or expected, and, if postdocs are involved, a brief description of their contribution to the event.
 - A proposed day-by-day schedule of activities/courses with tentative titles of courses and lecturers.
- An outline of the preliminary budget. 

Deadline: January 14, 2022

Application submission: Please send the application by email to haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca.

For questions or all other inquiries, please contact haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca.

Scholarships for Outstanding PhD Candidates - deadline: November 26, 2021

Posted Tuesday, October 19, 2021

The ISM will award several one-term $7,500 scholarships to PhD students completing their last calendar year of studies. The scholarships shall be awarded during Winter 2022 semester. This award is intended to support outstanding doctoral students so they can concentrate entirely on their thesis writing and defence preparation.

Since the primary goal of this scholarship is to provide the recipients with the necessary time to complete their research, please note that:

  • Students who are already recipients of a doctoral fellowship from a major funding agency, which allows them to concentrate entirely on their studies, are not eligible to apply.
  • Recipients of the scholarship for Outstanding PhD candidates are not permitted to teach a university course during the tenure of the award.

To apply, all course work and comprehensive exams must be completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal must have been accepted by the thesis advisor and/or committee.

Deadline for Applications: Friday, November 26, 2021.

A complete application includes:

  • a brief cover letter (indicating the term applying for, the thesis subject and the name of the thesis director),
  • an academic CV,
  • a copy of all graduate (PhD) transcripts,
  • a letter from the graduate program director confirming eligibility (all course work and comprehensive exams are completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal has been accepted by the advisor and/or thesis committee) and;
  • a letter of reference from the thesis advisor detailing the progress of the student while clearly stating the expected date of graduation or thesis defence (month and year are sufficient).

Please submit applications to ism@uqam.ca.

CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowships. Deadline to apply: November 12, 2021

Posted Friday, October 15, 2021

Every year, the ISM, the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and researchers from the member universities welcome a certain number of postdoctoral fellows. All candidates interested in working with a mathematics research team from Quebec are invited to submit an application to the CRM-ISM competition.

Dimitris Kokoulopoulos and Sergey Norin invited to speak at the 2022 ICM

Posted Wednesday, September 29, 2021

The ISM would like to congratulate professors Dimitris Kokoulopoulos (Université de Montréal) and Sergey Norin (McGill University) who have been invited to speak at the 2022 ICM to be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia in July 2022.

The CRM funds five ISM courses given online for open access

Posted Friday, September 10, 2021

This fall the CRM is awarding grants to five professors who are giving their specialized ISM courses online, live-streamed and recorded, to make the content available to a wider audience, in particular students and potential collaborators.

Henri Darmon, Université McGill
Modular Forms and Orthogonal Groups
Course site

Antonio Lei, Université Laval
Modular Forms and Elliptic Curves
Course site  
Zoom link

Melina Mailhot, Université Concordia
Risk Measures
Zoom link 

Javad Mashreghi, Université Laval
Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space of Analytic Functions
Course site 

Iosif Polterovich, Université de Montréal
Geometric Spectral Theory 
Course site

Courses offered in 2021-22

2021-22 ISM Course Listings

Posted Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Scholarships for Outstanding PhD Candidates

Posted Tuesday, August 10, 2021

The ISM will award several one-term $7,500 scholarships to PhD students completing their last calendar year of studies. The scholarships shall be awarded during the Fall 2021 or Winter 2022 semester. This award is intended to support outstanding doctoral students so they can concentrate entirely on their thesis writing and defence preparation.

Since the primary goal of this scholarship is to provide the recipients with the necessary time to complete their research, please note that:

  • Students who are already recipients of a doctoral fellowship from a major funding agency, which allows them to concentrate entirely on their studies, are not eligible to apply.
  • Recipients of the scholarship for Outstanding PhD candidates are not permitted to teach a university course during the tenure of the award.

To apply, all course work and comprehensive exams must be completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal must have been accepted by the thesis advisor and/or committee.

Deadline for Applications: Friday, September 24, 2021.

A complete application includes:

  • a brief cover letter (indicating the term applying for, the thesis subject and the name of the thesis director),
  • an academic CV,
  • a copy of all graduate (PhD) transcripts,
  • a letter from the graduate program director confirming eligibility (all course work and comprehensive exams are completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal has been accepted by the advisor and/or thesis committee) and;
  • a letter of reference from the thesis advisor detailing the progress of the student while clearly stating the expected date of graduation or thesis defence (month and year are sufficient).

Please submit applications to ism@uqam.ca.

CRM Research grant for ISM courses given online

Posted Monday, July 12, 2021

To make the content of certain specialized ISM courses available to a broader audience, in particular potential students and collaborators, the CRM is offering a research grant of $2,000 to eligible professors who give their ISM courses on Zoom, or any other online platform. The selected courses will be streamed live as well as recorded and available online (be it through YouTube, OneDrive, Google Drive, or any similar platform) to all who wish to audit the course. The links for the online platform and course materials will be available on the ISM website on the course page.

Conditions:

1) The university offering the course must agree to the terms, namely, that the course be offered on an online platform and that the content be available free of charge to anyone who wishes to access it.

2) The course must be a high-level specialized research course that is not offered every year.

Applications should be sent to ism@uqam.ca and include the course title and outline as well as a letter from the applicant’s department confirming that the university allows the course content to be available to all who wish to access it.

The research grant can be used to pay for all expenses that are eligible with a FRQNT grant.

Application deadline: September 1, 2021

Benoît Corsini and Souheila Hassoun awarded the 2021 Carl Herz Prize

Posted Thursday, May 6, 2021

We are very pleased to inform you that there will be two winners of the Carl Herz Prize this year: Benoît Corsini, a doctoral student at McGill University, and Souheila Hassoun, a doctoral student at the Université de Sherbrooke. Both winners will present their work at the ISM Student Conference, which will take place from May 22-23, 2021 online. 

Benoît Corsini undertook his PhD at McGill University in 2017 under the supervision of Louigi Addario-Berry. Previously, he completed a master's degree at the University of Cambridge and received an engineering degree from École Polytechnique, Paris.

Corsini has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for his paper co-authored with Louigi Addario-Berry "The height of Mallows trees" which is accepted for publication in the journal  Annals of Probability. During his doctoral studies, he has made substantial contributions on four distinct subjects: random permutations; random minimum spanning trees; computational music theory; and machine learning algorithms for graph anomaly detection. The research contribution for which he has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize describes the asymptotic behaviour of “Mallows trees”, the binary search trees that arise from Mallows permutations. Using a delicate and impressive mix of combinatorial and probabilistic techniques, he found a near-complete characterization of the asymptotic behaviour of the height of such trees. 

Corsini has also been an active member of the McGill Math Department as a tutor in the high school program Math.en.jeans, teaching students about mathematical reasoning and proofs, and as organizer of the Graduate Student Seminar. 

Souheila Hassoun has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for her overall research contributions and in particular for her paper "Intersections, sums, and the Jordan-Hölder property for exact categories" co-authored with Thomas Brüstle and Aran Tattar, and accepted for publication in the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra. She began her PhD under the supervision of Thomas Brüstle at the University of Sherbrooke in 2016, and will soon defend her thesis. She received her MSc in Mathematics in 2016 from the Catholic University of Leuven, and her BSc from the Lebanese University in 2013.  

Hassoun’s recent work focuses on isolating the properties which are needed for an exact category to satisfy the Jordan-Hölder property. These properties are formulated in terms of generalized intersections and sums, a concept introduced by Ms. Hassoun as leading author in the paper cited above. Indeed, two resulting papers are currently in process of publication or submitted. This work has also led to interesting results in functional analysis, obtained in joint work with experts of that field. 

Hassoun showed great initiative during her time at Université de Sherbrooke, as both a mathematician and an organizer. She has independently developed many research collaborations, supervised an undergraduate research project, and created a weekly online seminar in representation theory and its applications. She has also co-organized many conferences, including the Summer School of Algebraic Combinatorics which will take place this June.

Hassoun will continue her research in mathematics as a Zelevinsky Postdoctoral Fellow at Northeastern University.

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 research grant. This year the prize shall be shared by the two winners.  The Selection Committee consisted of Jean-Philippe Burelle (Université de Sherbrooke), Alexandre Girouard (Université Laval), Egor Shelukhin (Université de Montréal), Clarence Simard (UQAM) and Alina Stancu (Concordia).

Andrew Granville (Université de Montréal) awarded CRM-Fields-PIMS 2021 Prize

Posted Tuesday, February 2, 2021

The ISM congratualates Andrew Granville (Université de Montréal) who has been awarded the CRM-Fields-PIMS 2021 Prize for his outstanding achievements in the mathematical sciences. Prof. Granville’s influence is measured only in part by his important research and mentoring contributions; just as essential are his love for his subject matter, his boundless energy and creativity, and his enthusiasm in communicating the beauty of mathematics to others.

 Prof. Granville’s broad range of accomplishments include tackling questions in arithmetic geometry, Diophantine approximation, algorithmic and cryptographic aspects, and his deep contributions to analytic number theory. A charismatic communicator, he is widely sought after as a speaker for diverse audiences. Professor Granville has more than 160 published papers to his credit, many of which appear in the field’s top journals. He has also written numerous textbooks and lecture notes. The range of his writing talent extends to a theatrical play and a widely acclaimed graphic novel that explores mathematical themes.

 Prof. Granville has played a significant leadership role in Canadian mathematics since obtaining his PhD from Queens University in 1987. In 2002, he joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the Université de Montréal as a senior Canada Research Chair. His presence has had a galvanizing effect on the Montreal mathematics community, in particular. The list of graduate students and postdocs he has trained in his career reads like a who’s who amongst the younger generation of leading analytic number theorists including several prominent female mathematicians.

Source: CRM

Egor Shelukhin (Université de Montréal) awarded 2020 André-Aisenstadt Prize ex-aequo with Robert Haslhofer (University of Toronto)

Posted Wednesday, October 14, 2020

This year the André-Aisenstadt prize has been awarded to two talented young Canadian mathematicians: Robert Haslhofer and Egor Shelukhin.

CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowships. Deadline to apply: November 13, 2020

Posted Monday, September 28, 2020

Every year, the ISM, the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and researchers from the member universities welcome a certain number of postdoctoral fellows. All candidates interested in working with a mathematics research team from Quebec are invited to submit an application to the CRM-ISM competition.

Christian Genest receives the John L. Synge Award

Posted Tuesday, September 15, 2020

The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) announced today that Christian Genest, a professor at McGill University, is the ninth recipient of the John L. Synge Award. This distinction, created in 1986, is given by the RSC on an irregular basis for outstanding research in the mathematical sciences. Christian is the first statistician and the second ISM member to earn this distinction. Another McGill professor, number theorist Henri Darmon, had been the sixth recipient in 2008.

The RSC’s press release states that “Christian Genest, FRSC, is a world-renowned statistician whose seminal work in copula modeling, extreme-value theory, and collaborative decision-making led to a transformative understanding of the impact of dependence in risk assessment. He designed multivariate data analysis and nonparametric inference methods which improved risk management practices in insurance, finance, hydrology and other fields. His contributions have earned him several awards, including a research prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.”

Louis-Paul Rivest elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Posted Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Congratulations to Louis-Paul Rivest, professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Université Laval, who will become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada on November 27, 2020.

Louis-Paul is the holder of a Canada Research Chair in Statistical Sampling and Data Analysis. He is one of the pioneers of dependence modeling via copulas. His works in multivariate analysis, in directional statistics, on capture-recapture models and in survey sampling have had a fundamental impact in finance, in actuarial sciences, in social statistics, in environmental science, and in biomechanics.

Recognition by the Royal Society of Canada is the highest honor a Canadian can achieve in the Arts, Social Sciences and Sciences.

https://rsc-src.ca/en/news/press-release-rsc-presents-class-2020

Scholarships for Outstanding PhD Candidates

Posted Monday, August 24, 2020

In 2020-2021, the ISM will award several one-term $7,500 scholarships to PhD students completing their last calendar year of studies. The scholarships shall be awarded during the Fall 2020 or Winter 2021 semester. This award is intended to support outstanding doctoral students so they can concentrate entirely on their thesis writing and defence preparation.

Since the primary goal of this scholarship is to provide the recipients with the necessary time to complete their research, please note that:

  • Students who are already recipients of a doctoral fellowship from a major funding agency, which allows them to concentrate entirely on their studies, are not eligible to apply.
  • Recipients of the scholarship for Outstanding PhD candidates are not permitted to teach a university course during the tenure of the award.

To apply, all course work and comprehensive exams must be completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal must have been accepted by the thesis advisor and/or committee.

Deadline for Applications: Friday, September 25, 2020.

A complete application includes:

  • a brief cover letter (indicating the term applying for, the thesis subject and the name of the thesis director),
  • an academic CV,
  • a copy of all graduate (PhD) transcripts,
  • a letter from the graduate program director confirming eligibility (all course work and comprehensive exams are completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal has been accepted by the advisor and/or thesis committee) and;
  • a letter of reference from the thesis advisor detailing the progress of the student while clearly stating the expected date of graduation or thesis defence (month and year are sufficient).

Please submit applications to ism@uqam.ca.

2020-21 ISM Course Listings

Posted Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Establishment of the CRM-ISM-AMQ Prize for an outstanding publication

Posted Wednesday, May 27, 2020

It is our pleasure to announce the establishment of the CRM-ISM-AMQ prize, to be awarded annually for an outstanding publication in the Annales Mathématiques du Québec (AMQ). The new prize has been created in collaboration between the  Centre de recherches mathématiques, the Institut des sciences mathématiques,  and the AMQ.

Awarding rules:

The prize is awarded at the end of each calendar year. To be eligible, the paper must be published in the AMQ during that or the previous year. The winning paper is selected by the Editorial Board; no nominations are required. 

The monetary value of the prize is CAD $1000.    

For the first time, the prize will be awarded in December 2021 to one of the papers published in the years 2021 or 2020. For further information on the AMQ, including submission guidelines, please visit

https://www.springer.com/journal/40316  

Erica Moodie awarded 2020 CRM-SSC Prize

Posted Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Erica Moodie, William Dawson Scholar and Professor in the McGill University Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health has been selected as the 2020 recipient of the CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics. The prize is awarded annually by the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) in recognition of outstanding research carried out primarily in Canada by a statistician during the first fifteen years after completing a PhD.

Erica was selected for her outstanding contributions to biostatistics, notably in causal inference, precision medicine, and dynamic treatment regimes, and her influential contributions to substantive areas of application such as HIV and mental health. She is the third Montréal researcher in a row to win this prestigious award. For additional details, see

http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prixCRMSSC/prixCRMSSC20_an.shtml

Two Québec researchers named IMS fellows

Posted Friday, May 22, 2020

The ISM is pleased to report that McGill professors Louigi Addario-Berry and Johanna G. Nešlehová have been named Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). Created in 1935, the IMS is a professional and scholarly society of international repute fostering the development and dissemination of the theory and applications of statistics and probability; it has over 3500 active members. Each year, the IMS selects a class of Fellows who have demonstrated excellence in research or leadership in probability or statistics. This high distinction was awarded this year to 35 individuals, including professors Addario-Berry and Nešlehová. For a summary of their achievements and a complete list of the 2020 IMS Fellows, see

https://imstat.org/2020/05/17/congratulations-to-the-2020-ims-fellows/.

 

Renaud Raquépas awarded 2020 Carl Herz Prize

Posted Wednesday, May 6, 2020

We are very pleased to announce that Renaud Raquépas, a Ph.D. student at McGill University, is this year's winner of the Carl-Herz Prize.

Renaud Raquépas has been awarded the Carl-Herz Prize for his preprint "The large-time and vanishing-noise limits of entropy production in nondegenerate diffusions" https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.12015.pdf, to be submitted shortly for publication. He is also the sole author of two articles published in Letters in Mathematical Physics and Annales Henri Poincaré respectively, as well as four articles with collaborators. He began his PhD in 2017 under the co-supervision of Vojkan Jaksic (McGill) and Alain Joye (Université Grenoble Alpes) and will complete it this fall. Previously, he completed his B.Sc. in 2016 in the joint honours in mathematics and physics program at McGill, and his M.Sc. in Mathematics in 2017 under the supervision of Vojkan Jaksic at McGill University.

The work for which Renaud has been awarded the prize is a technical and conceptual tour de force. It concerns the study of the Large Deviation Principle (LDP) for the entropy production observable of a suitable class of stochastic differential equations (SDE), including the proof of the Gallavotti-Cohen (GC) fluctuation relation and the study of vanishing noise limit. The works of Gallavotti-Cohen and Lebowitz-Spohn on fluctuation relation and its various ramifications have revolutionized our understanding of non-equilibrium statistical physics and have generated an enormous amount of physics literature with applications extending to chemistry and biology. However, mathematically rigorous works on the subject are scarce. This should not be surprising since proving the LDP for the entropy production observable and establishing the GC fluctuation relation amounts to proving the fine form of the second law of thermodynamics in a given dynamical setting. Renaud’s work establishes all of this for an important class of SDE’s and accompanies the result with a detailed semiclassical-type analysis of the vanishing noise limit. This work opens a new research direction.

Throughout his doctoral studies at McGill University, Renaud was supported by an NSERC Alexander Graham Bell scholarship.

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 prize is accompanied by a $1,000 research grant. This year’s Selection Committee consisted of Galia Dafni (Concordia), Christian Genest (McGill), Matilde Lalin (Université de Montréal) and Franco Saliola (UQAM).

ISM Discovery Schools Call for Proposals - deadline February 3, 2020

Posted Thursday, November 14, 2019

The ISM will once again sponsor several 2-day to 1-week long Discovery Schools for graduate students, and possibly advanced undergraduate students, to take place any time between May 1st and December 11, 2020. The schools aim to present new exciting progress in mathematical sciences. A discovery school should consist of a special series of lectures or mini-courses with a specific theme not found in regular university courses, to which exercise sessions or other student interactive events can be added. The objective is to train students in a particular topic and, ideally, to provide a model of transition to independent research in the mathematical sciences. 

The amount of ISM funding rewarded will depend primarily on the length of the workshop, the number of expected participants, and the number of external speakers.The maximum amount of funding awarded to each school will be $5,000. 

Eligible expenses are travel expenses and lodging for invited, non-local, lecturers, or, in case these expenses are covered by other sources, an honorarium, and travel expenses and lodging for non-local students interested in attending. Postdocs are encouraged to get involved, but they are ineligible for support. No registration fee should be charged to the students and organizers are encouraged to not use the ISM funds for printing or other materials.  The ISM will provide a website for each school and can help with the logistics of the organization.  

A complete application consists of: 

- A 2-page scientific proposal outlining the subject of the school and its scientific importance, the names of the organizers, the aimed audience and its size, the proposed speakers/lecturers indicating, if possible, those confirmed to come if the event is held, the dates and venue where the event is envisaged, if other funds are secured or expected, and, if postdocs are involved, a brief description of their contribution to the event. 

 - A proposed day-by-day schedule of activities/courses with tentative titles of courses and lecturers. 

- An outline of the preliminary budget.  

Deadline: February 3, 2020 (the selection of schools to be funded will announced in mid-February). 

Application submission: Please send the application by email to haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca

For questions or all other inquiries, please contact haedrich.alexandra@uqam.ca.

Project to declare March 14th the International Day of Mathematics

Posted Wednesday, October 9, 2019

The International Mathematical Union is leading the project of having UNESCO proclaiming March 14 (Pi Day) as the International Day of Mathematics (IDM). This proclamation has been adopted by the Executive Board of UNESCO at its 205th session in October 2018. It is now on the agenda of the 40th General Conference of UNESCO in November 2019. If adopted, the official launch will be in 2020.

Considering that March 14, 2020 is a Saturday, the launch at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris will take place on Friday March 13, 2020. We hope to hold a simultaneous African launch at the Next Einstein Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.

The 2020 theme is Mathematics is everywhere:

  • Mathematics is everywhere in science and technology.
  • Mathematics is everywhere in the organization of the civilization.
  • Mathematics is essential to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Mathematics is everywhere in whatever you do.
  • Tell me about some activity or area and I will tell you where mathematics is.

 On the website you can:

  • Find open source material related to theme: projects, ideas, software for use in classrooms, in large events or in small activities for the children and the general public
  • Find instructions on how to organize an event
  • Post your activities on an interactive map
  • Explore the activities around the world

 How will you celebrate?

  • Will you celebrate in your classroom?
  • Do you wish to organize a small exhibition and/or interactive activities with your local community?
  • Will your national mathematical society or mathematics teachers association organize national activities?
  • Will you celebrate with a neighbouring country?

www.idm314.org

Scholarships for Outstanding PhD Candidates. Deadline to apply: November 1, 2019

Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2019

In 2019-2020, the ISM will award several one-term $5K scholarships to PhD students completing their last calendar year of studies. The scholarships shall be awarded during the 2020 Winter semester. This award is intended to support outstanding doctoral students so they can concentrate entirely on their thesis writing and defence preparation.

Since the primary goal of this scholarship is to provide the recipients with the necessary time to complete their research, please note that:

* Students who are already recipients of a doctoral fellowship from a major funding agency, which allows them to concentrate entirely on their studies, are not eligible to apply.

* Recipients of the scholarship for Outstanding PhD candidates are not permitted to teach a university course during the tenure of the award.

To apply, all course work and comprehensive exams must be completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal must have been accepted by the thesis advisor and/or committee.

Deadline for Applications: Friday, November 1, 2019.

A complete application includes:

  • a brief cover letter (indicating the term applying for, the thesis subject and the name of the thesis director),
  • an academic CV,
  • a copy of all graduate (PhD) transcripts,
  • a letter from the graduate program director confirming eligibility (all course work and comprehensive exams are completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal has been accepted by the advisor and/or thesis committee) and;
  • a letter of reference from the thesis advisor detailing the progress of the student while clearly stating the expected date of graduation or thesis defence (month and year are sufficient).

Please submit applications to ism@uqam.ca.

CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowships. Deadline to apply: November 29, 2019

Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Every year, the ISM, the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and researchers from the member universities welcome a certain number of postdoctoral fellows. All candidates interested in working with a mathematics research team from Quebec are invited to submit an application to the CRM-ISM competition.

2019-20 ISM Course Listings available

Posted Monday, August 19, 2019

Bruno Rémillard receives two prestigious distinctions

Posted Tuesday, June 4, 2019

In recent weeks, Bruno Rémillard, Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at HEC Montréal, has received two tributes to his career accomplishments. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and received the 2019 Gold Medal from the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC). These distinctions come at a significant time in Bruno’s professional life, since he retired in May.

The Gold Medal is the highest honor bestowed by the SSC. Bruno, who is the 34th recipient, was honored “for his broad and influential contributions to probability theory, statistics, and financial engineering, for his excellence in training and mentoring, for his academic leadership, and for his dedication to the profession.” As for the title of IMS Fellow, it is granted each year to a few individuals who have demonstrated excellence in research or leadership in probability or statistics. Bruno is the only Canadian in this year’s class of 25 news Fellow listed here:

https://imstat.org/2019/05/14/2019-ims-fellows-announced/

For more details about Bruno Rémillard’s career and accomplishments, see

https://ssc.ca/en/awards/2019/bruno-remillard

Johanna Nešlehová awarded 2019 CRM-SSC Prize

Posted Friday, May 24, 2019

Johanna Nešlehová, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University, has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics. The prize is awarded annually by the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) in recognition of outstanding research carried out primarily in Canada by a statistician during the first fifteen years after completing a PhD.

 Johanna received this prestigious accolade for her fundamental contributions to multivariate statistics, and in particular stochastic dependence modeling and extreme-value theory, as well as for her efforts to promote the sound application of statistics in risk management. She is the first McGill professor and 5th woman to earn this distinction since its creation in 1999. For additional details, see

 http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prixCRMSSC/prixCRMSSC19_an.shtml

Carl Herz Prize awarded to Abdellah Lahdili and Alice Pozzi

Posted Thursday, May 2, 2019

We are pleased to inform you that there are two Carl Herz Prize winners this year: Abdellah Lahdili, a Ph.D. student from UQAM, and Alice Pozzi, a recent Ph.D. Graduate from McGill University. 

Abdellah Lahdili has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for his article “Kähler metrics with constant weighted scalar curvature and weighted K-stability” which has been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. He is also the sole author of two other articles to appear in the IMRN and in the Journal of Geometrical Analysis. He began his Ph.D. at UQAM in 2016 under the supervision of Vestislav Apostolov and Frédéric Rochon and will be submitting his thesis this summer. Previously, he completed a Master’s at the Université de Nantes under the supervision of Yann Rollin. 

Lahdili’s Ph.D. thesis is concerned with the existence of canonical Riemannian metrics on complex manifolds, a subject known as Kähler geometry and which has been at the forefront of active research for the past few decades.  His article “Kähler metrics with constant weighted scalar curvature and weighted K-stability” introduces a far-reaching approach to the problem of finding canonical Kähler metrics on a smooth projective variety, through a novel notion of weighted scalar curvature. He extends one direction of the Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture within the weighted setting, allowing him to make simultaneous progress in a number of problems of current interest, including the existence of Kähler—Ricci solitons (pioneered by Tian—Zhu) and of Sasaki metrics of constant scalar curvature (studied by Martelli—Sparks—Yau and Collins—Székelyhidi). 

Throughout his studies at UQAM, Abdellah was supported by ISM graduate scholarships. Next September, he will be starting a three-year Postdoctoral Research Position at the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research under the mentorship of Gang Tian.  

Alice Pozzi has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for her article “On the failure of Gorensteinness at weight 1 Eisentein points of the eigencurve” co-authored with Adel Betina and Mladen Dimitrov and submitted for publication. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2019 from McGill University. She received her Master of Science in 2013 through the ALGANT programme, earning degrees at both Concordia and the Université Paris-Sud.  She then came to McGill to work on her Ph.D. under the supervision of Henri Darmon and Payman Kassaei. 

Alice Pozzi’s thesis studies the local geometry of the Coleman-Mazur eigencurve at a point attached to a weight one irregular Eisenstein series. Ever since Andrew Wiles’ spectacular proof of the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture and Fermat’s Last Theorem, understanding the local p-adic deformation space of modular forms and associated Galois representations has led to important advances in number theory. Alice’s thesis takes up the study in a notoriously delicate setting where the Galois representation being deformed is reducible and endowed with the trivial action of the decomposition group at p. This setting has important implications for a variety of arithmetic questions, notably, a celebrated conjecture of Perrin-Riou relating rational points on elliptic curves to a construction of Kato, and to Benedict Gross's p-adic variant of the Stark conjectures.  It also arises naturally in Sharifi’s program for studying the arithmetic of cyclotomic fields via K-theory and higher Massey products, and in the Merel-Lecouturier theory of higher Eisenstein elements. 

While doing her PhD thesis, Alice Pozzi was supported by a Schulich Fellowship. She is currently a Research associate at University College London working under the supervision of Sarah Zerbes. 

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 travel grant, allowing the recipient to present his or her research at a conference. This year the prize shall be shared by the two winners.  The Selection Committee consisted of Louigi Addario-Berry (McGill), Andrew Granville (Université de Montréal), Javad Mashreghi (Laval) et Niky Kamran (McGill). 

My Master's Thesis in 1000 words - call for submissions

Posted Thursday, February 21, 2019

L’Association mathématique du Québec (AMQ) publie quatre numéros annuellement (https://www.amq.math.ca/bulletin/). Son but est d’offrir aux membres de l’association des articles de qualité traitant des trois sujets suivants :  la recherche, l’enseignement et l’apprentissage des mathématiques. Sa mission est également d’animer la communauté mathématique du Québec et s’adresse aussi bien aux professeurs d’université que ceux de niveau collégial et ceux de secondaire curieux des mathématiques plus avancées.

Le bulletin inclut notamment une rubrique intitulée Mon mémoire en 1000 mots. Cette rubrique s’adresse aux étudiantes et étudiants venant de terminer une maîtrise en mathématiques ou en didactique des mathématiques et qui peuvent, en environ 1000 mots, présenter leur travail dans une revue avec arbitrage. C'est souvent l'occasion d'une première publication qui se fait avec le soutien de leur directeur ou directrice de maîtrise.

C’est donc un appel à partager vos travaux dans la communauté mathématique québécoise !

CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowships. Deadline to apply: December 7, 2018

Posted Monday, October 1, 2018

Every year, the ISM, the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and researchers from the member universities welcome a certain number of postdoctoral fellows. All candidates interested in working with a mathematics research team from Quebec are invited to submit an application to the CRM-ISM competition.

Luc Vinet elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Posted Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Congratulations to Luc Vinet, professor in the Department of Physics at the Université de Montréal and director of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) who has recently been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC).

Luc’s work had a deep impact on our understanding of symmetries in physics and their mathematical description. He has made seminal contributions to gauge theories, supersymmetry, integrable systems and quantum information. He has obtained outstanding results in algebraic combinatorics by using physical models and has transformed the theory of special functions and its applications through an algebraic viewpoint.

Recognition by the RSC is the highest honor an individual can achieve in the Arts, Social Sciences and Sciences. A complete list of the fellows elected in 2018 can be found here:

https://rsc-src.ca/en/royal-society-canada-elect-new-fellows-and-college-members-2018

Scholarships for Outstanding PhD Candidates. Deadline to apply: October 12, 2018

Posted Thursday, August 9, 2018

In 2018-2019, the ISM will award several one-term $5K scholarships to PhD students completing their last calendar year of studies. The scholarships shall be awarded during the 2019 Winter semester.

All course work and comprehensive exams must be completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal must have been accepted by the thesis advisor and/or committee.

This award is intended to support outstanding doctoral students so they can concentrate on their work to complete their thesis writing and defence. Consequently, awardees are not permitted to teach a university course during the tenure of the award.

Deadline for Applications: October 12, 2018.

A complete application includes:

  • a brief cover letter (indicating the term applying for, the thesis subject and the name of the thesis director),
  • an academic CV,
  • a copy of all graduate (PhD) transcripts,
  • a letter from the graduate program director confirming eligibility (all course work and comprehensive exams are completed by the time of the application, and a thesis proposal has been accepted by the advisor and/or thesis committee) and;
  • a letter of reference from the thesis advisor detailing the progress of the student while clearly stating the expected date of graduation or thesis defence (month and year are sufficient).

Please submit applications to ism@uqam.ca.

David Haziza awarded 2018 CRM-SSC Prize

Posted Friday, May 25, 2018

David Haziza, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Université de Montréal, has been selected as the 2018 recipient of the CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics. The prize is awarded annually by the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) in recognition of outstanding research carried out primarily in Canada by a statistician during the first fifteen years after completing a PhD.

 This prestigious award was conferred upon David for his outstanding contributions to survey sampling theory and practice, notably, path-breaking methodology for missing data, innovative methods that improved the robustness of estimation, and for their impact on the practice of national statistical agencies. For additional details, see

 http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prixCRMSSC/prixCRMSSC18_an.shtml

ISM Discovery School: Shape Optimization and Spectral Geometry

Posted Monday, May 14, 2018

The school is aimed at graduate students but it will also be accessible to advanced undergraduate students. The goal of the school is to give an overview of a selection of recent topics in spectral geometry and shape optimization, which are closely related areas of geometric analysis. Each topic will be presented in a 4-hour mini-course by a leading expert. These lectures will be complemented by supervised exercise sessions. This school is particularly well timed given that both spectral geometry and shape optimization have witnessed major advances in recent years.

Mikhail Karpukhin is the 2018 Carl Herz Prize winner

Posted Friday, May 11, 2018

We are pleased to inform you that Mr. Mikhail Karpukhin, a PhD student in mathematics at McGill University, is the 2018 recipient of the Carl Herz Prize.

Mikhail Karpukhin is completing his Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Dmitry Jakobson and Iosif Polterovich. Previously, he was a student of Alexei Penskoi at Moscow State University and the Independent University of Moscow.

Mikhail works in spectral geometry and has authored six journal publications as well as two preprints. His Ph.D. thesis is concerned with the eigenvalue bounds for Laplace and Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators on Riemannian manifolds. His most important result up-to-date is probably an isoperimetric inequality for the first Laplace eigenvalue on non-orientable surfaces, which extends the celebrated bounds obtained by Yang-Yau and Li-Yau in the early 1980s. Mikhail has also established the best currently known explicit isoperimetric inequalities for Steklov eigenvalues on surfaces. His other contributions include the study of Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators on differential forms, multiplicity estimates for Steklov eigenvalues on surfaces and results on extremal metrics for Laplace eigenvalues on spheres, tori and Klein bottles.

Throughout his studies at McGill University, Mikhail was supported by Tomlinson and Schulich graduate scholarships. In a few months, Mikhail is expected to start a three-year Visiting Assistant Professorship at the University of California at Irvine.

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 travel grant, allowing the recipient to present his or her research at a conference. This year’s Selection Committee consisted of Virginie Charette (Université de Sherbrooke), Damir Kinzebulatov (Laval), Giovanni Rosso (Concordia), Yvan Saint-Aubin (Université de Montréal) and Russell Steele (McGill).

Olivier Collin appointed Director of the ISM

Posted Wednesday, May 9, 2018

It is a great pleasure to inform you that Dr. Olivier Collin, professor in the Department of Mathematics at UQAM, has been appointed director of the ISM as of June 1st, 2018. He will serve a three-year term.

After completing his doctorate at Oxford, Dr. Collin was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, Harvard and Cambridge. He joined UQAM as a professor in 2001. Having already directed the ISM from 2009-12, Dr. Collin will bring much experience to the position.

ISM Discovery School: Perspectives on bordered Heegaard Floer theory

Posted Tuesday, May 8, 2018

We are organizing a summer school focused on new developments in bordered Heegaard Floer theory and the consequences of these developments towards the so-called L-space conjecture. The school is paired with and will provide background for a 1½-day research conference.

Maksym Radziwill named the recipient of the 2018 Coxeter-James Prize

Posted Friday, April 27, 2018

The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) has named Professor Maksym Radziwill (McGill) the recipient of the 2018 Coxeter-James Prize.  Professor Radziwill will receive the award during the CMS Winter Meeting in Vancouver, BC December 7-10, 2018. The Coxeter-James Prize was inaugurated in 1978 to recognize young mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research. For more information, please see: https://cms.math.ca/MediaReleases/2018/coxeterjames

Two gold awards and one honourable mention for Montreal Math Circle students at the Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge

Posted Thursday, January 18, 2018

The ISM is very proud of students Qinyu Cui (grade 12), Allison Tsypin (grade 9) and Bruno Cisneros (grade 10), who won two gold awards and an honourable mention respectively in the Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge at the Quebec level. Qinyu Cui also won gold in all of Canada!

For more information, see: https://cms.math.ca/Competitions/COMC/2017/results.html/QC

Registration Open for the Winter Sessions of the Montreal Math Circle

Posted Friday, December 15, 2017

The Montreal Math Circle is an enrichment program which offers an occasion for students interested in mathematics to solve challenging problems at their grade level. The circle aims to bring pleasure and confidence to children while doing mathematics.

The next session will begin on January 14, 2018. To register your child, please complete the form:

https://goo.gl/forms/WgJWe1mENWCoXHB33

Christiane Rousseau awarded AMS Bertrand Russell Prize

Posted Friday, November 17, 2017

The ISM congratulates Christiane Rousseau (Université de Montréal) for receiving the inaugural Bertrand Russell Prize of the AMS in recognition of her many contributions furthering human values and the common good through mathematics: http://www.ams.org/news?news_id=3821.

CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowship deadline: December 8, 2017

Posted Friday, September 29, 2017

CRM-ISM postdoctoral fellowships are awarded to promising researchers who have recently obtained or expect to obtain a Ph.D. in the mathematical sciences. The deadline for the CRM-ISM postdoctoral competition is December 8, 2017.

To apply, click here.

André Joyal awarded honorary doctorate from Université de Sherbrooke

Posted Friday, September 29, 2017

On September 23, 2017, André Joyal, emeritus professor at UQAM, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Université de Sherbrooke. André Joyal is known for his extraordinary mathematical vision, and for his deeply original contributions to many fields of mathematics.

https://www.usherbrooke.ca/accueil/fr/udes-en-bref/docteurs-dhonneur/docteurs/j/andre-joyal/

Registration Open for the Fall Sessions of the Montreal Math Circle

Posted Tuesday, September 5, 2017

The Montreal Math Circle  is an enrichment program which allows students interested in mathematics to solve challenging problems at their grade level. The circle aims to bring pleasure and confidence to children while doing mathematics.

The next session will begin on October 1st, 2017. Two sessions will be offered during the Fall.

To register your child, please complete the form at the following address:
https://goo.gl/forms/jdJ2VG1gjOygT6Xk1

Please complete one form per child and per session.

Adrian Iovita, Maksym Radziwill, James Maynard and Fabrizio Andreatta to speak at 2018 ICM in Rio de Janeiro

Posted Tuesday, August 22, 2017

We are very happy to announce that ISM members Adrian Iovita (Concordia U.) and Maksym Radziwill (McGill), as well as 2013-2014 CRM-ISM postdoctoral fellow James Maynard and  2000-01 CICMA postdoctoral fellow Fabrizio Andreatta will speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 2018 in Rio de Janeiro: http://www.icm2018.org/portal/en/icm-speakers.

The journal Annales Mathématiques du Québec celebrates 40 years

Posted Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

In 2017, the journal Annales Mathématiques du Québec celebrates forty years of existence. Produced by Springer since 2012, with the support of the CRM and the ISM, this journal publishes quality research papers in the mathematical sciences. I use this opportunity to encourage you, your collaborators as well as your students to take a look at the journal at http://www.springer.com/mathematics/journal/40316 and to submit your research papers to AMQ.

Yours Sincerely,

Octav Cornea
Editor in Chief
Annales Mathématiques du Québec

Bernard R. Hodgson to receive the 2017 Excellence in Teaching Award

Posted Wednesday, June 14, 2017

The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce that Dr. Bernard R. Hodgson (Université Laval) is the recipient of the 2017 Excellence in Teaching Award.  Dr. Hodgson will receive the award and present a prize lecture at the CMS Winter Meeting in Waterloo, Ontario, December 2017.

The Excellence in Teaching Award recognizes sustained and distinguished contributions in teaching at the post-secondary undergraduate level at a Canadian institution.

For more information please visit https://cms.math.ca/MediaReleases/2017/ETAward

MCA 2017 - Student Poster Session

Posted Monday, May 15, 2017

The Canadian Mathematical Society Student Committee (CMS Studc) and the Atlantic Association for Research in the Mathematical Sciences (AARMS) invite students to present a poster on a topic of their choice from July 24th-28th at the AARMS-CMS Student Poster Session during the 2017 Mathematical Congress of the Americas in Montréal, Québec.

 A limited number of subsidies of $50 each to cover poster printing costs will be offered to students from Canadian institutions. These subsidies will be subject to some conditions and are given on a first come basis.

 To register for the poster session, an abstract must be submitted by May 31st and meeting registration must be paid by June 16th. Abstracts can be submitted on this page, while conference registration can be done through this form.

 For further information please visit the student page of the meeting.  Any other questions about the poster session should be directed to the poster session organizers, Svenja Huntemann and Simon Huang, at studc-mca-poster@cms.math.ca.

Octav Cornea named Editor-in-Chief of the Annales mathématiques du Québec

Posted Thursday, April 27, 2017

On July 1st 2017, Octav Cornea will start a 3-year mandate as Editor-in-Chief at Annales mathématiques du Québec. He succeeds Dima Jakobson will complete his successful mandate on June 30th, and whom we would like to thank for his excellent work.

Octav Cornea’s appointment has been made by Luc Vinet, CRM Director, and Alina Stancu, ISM Director, following the recommendation of the CRM-ISM Search committee formed last Fall by the following members: Alejandro Adem (UBC), Steven Boyer (UQAM), Galia Dafni (Concordia U.), Henri Darmon (McGill), Claude Levesque (U. Laval), Peter Ozsváth (Princeton U.), Christiane Rousseau (UdeM).

On behalf of all the people involved in the selection, we wish Octav Cornea success in his work at the Annales Mathématiques du Québec.

AMQ Summer Camp: May 28 - June 3

Posted Tuesday, April 25, 2017

The cegep-level math camp is sponsored by the Association mathématique du Québec (AMQ) and the Canadian Mathematical Society with the goal of giving talented students in mathematics and science a chance to discover the beauty of mathematics, their creative power, and their many applications. The campers get to meet mathematical researchers as well as other cegep students who share their interest in mathematics.

The 2017 AMQ camp will be held at the University of Montreal from May 28 to June 3, 2017, from Sunday evening to Saturday afternoon. The campers will be housed in the student residences at the University of Montreal.

Every summer since 1980, more than twenty cegep students who distinguish themselves in the cegep level AMQ math contest and who are enthusiastic about math are invited to spend one week on a university campus. The days are animated by researchers in pure and applied mathematics.

Siyuan Lu winner of 2017 Carl Herz Prize

Posted Tuesday, April 25, 2017

We are pleased to inform you that Mr. Siyuan Lu, a PhD student in mathematics at McGill University, is the 2017 recipient of the Carl Herz Prize.

 The Prize has been awarded to Mr. Lu for his article, co-authored with Pengfei Guan, “Curvature estimates for immersed hypersurfaces in Riemannian manifolds” published in Inventiones mathematicae. At this early stage in his career, Lu has already made significant contributions to the field of fully nonlinear elliptic equations and their use in geometric analysis, having single-authored two other high quality research papers in the area.

 Mr. Lu obtained his Bachelor's of science degree at the University of Science and Technology of China and completed his Ph.D. entitled On a class of fully nonlinear equations and their applications in geometry under the supervision of Pengfei Guan. Next Fall he will be continuing as a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University.

 The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 travel grant, allowing the recipient to present his or her research at a conference. This year’s Selection Committee consisted of Galia Dafni (Concordia), Alexander Fribergh (Université de Montréal), Antonio Lei (Université Laval), Frédéric Rochon (UQAM), and Vasilisa Shramchenko (Université de Sherbrooke).

Registration open for the 2017 Math Camp (June 26-30, 2017)

Posted Thursday, April 20, 2017

Concordia’s Math Camp provides an enriching experience for students who have shown an interest or an aptitude for mathematics. Led by a bilingual instructor, experienced in outreach activities and international mathematical contests, and staffed by graduate students in mathematics or mathematics education from the Montreal area universities, the camp will challenge students aged 10-15 to develop their problem skills while having fun.

The students will participate in problem solving sessions, and experience math through games, projects, experiments and other fun activities. The camp will also highlight math in everyday life from practical fields to the arts. Finally, it is a chance for kids interested in mathematics to meet other kids who share the same interest and thus develop new friendships.

The cost of the camp is $225/week (M-F: 9am to 4pm) with an extra $35/week for extended care (M-F: 8am-9am and 4pm-5pm). The camp is held in the Mathematics and Statistics Department of Concordia University, 9th floor of the Library Building in SGW campus:

http://www.concordia.ca/maps/sgw-campus.html

A Montreal Math Circle Activity, the camp is made possible by Concordia University in collaboration with the Institut des sciences mathématiques (ISM) and the support of Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) and NSERC Promoscience.

Mathematical activities are chosen among:

-        appropriate level problem solving;

-        challenge problems: like open problems and discovery type activities;

-        exploratory activity with math themes like polygonal numbers, math in paintings, Escher logic and tessellations; or a math walk around the department.

-        recreational mathematics with activities foreseen for outreach and puzzles; stories or movies about mathematicians and mathematics.

We will aim to find at least one daily activity where the students will get to move around and spend some physical energy. 

Any general enquiries may be addressed to montrealmathclub@gmail.com. Please write June camp in the subject line.

To register, please complete the form.

The ISM will be participating in the 24 Hours of Science !

Posted Wednesday, April 19, 2017

From Sherbrooke to Chibougamau, Gatineau to the Magdalen Islands, the 12th edition of the Quebec-wide science festival 24 Hours of Science is finally here! The program is now available on line. From the 12th to the 13th of May, both young and old can participate in more than 360 activities taking place at more than 200 places throughout the province: science bars, exhibitions, astronomical observations… there is something for everyone!

The 2017 edition offers a program for you to explore the world of tomorrow, to get fully involved in science projects and to talk about innovation! All domains of science are included: biology, chemistry, mathematics, health, the humanities, etc. Each activity is an opportunity to discover new things and to meet with passionate specialists and presenters. With a user-friendly search engine on our website www.science24heures.com, it is easy to sort activities by region, theme or type.  The festival, organized by Science pour tous and recognized by UNESCO, is also a part of Science Odyssey, a nation-wide event hosted by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

For the occasion, the ISM is organizing the event The Mathematics of Magic!

Saturday, May 13, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
UQAM,  Président-Kennedy Building
201, ave du Président-Kennedy
Room PK-R650, Montréal

All are welcome!

Jean-Marie De Konick to give the 2017 Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award Lecture on April 19, 2017

Posted Tuesday, April 4, 2017

The Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award recognizes an educator in Canada who has demonstrated innovation and excellence in promoting mathematics education at the elementary, secondary, college, or university level.
 
This year’s lecture will be delivered by Dr. Jean-Marie de Koninck, Professor Emeritus from the Université Laval and 2016 winner of the Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award. His presentation, entitled “The Human Part of the Equation”, will examine how math education and math outreach can benefit from a more people-oriented approach.

The event will be held in room 230 of the Fields Institute (222 College Street, Toronto, ON). A reception will follow the public lecture.

Henri Darmon recipient of 2017 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize

Posted Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Professor Henri Darmon of McGill University is the winner of the 2017 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize. Professor Darmon is one of the leading number theorists of his generation. He has an extraordinary record of deep and highly influential contributions to the arithmetic theory of ellipticcurves, including his recent breakthrough on the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture. He has also been an exceptional mentor to students and an exemplary citizen of the mathematical community.

Prof. Darmon obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1991. He has been the James McGill Professor of Mathematics since 2005.

Source: CRM

Louigi Addario-Berry and Eyal Goren named Editors-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics

Posted Tuesday, January 17, 2017

The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce that Louigi Addario-Berry and Eyal Goren have been appointed as the incoming Editors-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics (CJM).

Addario-Berry works at the interface of probability and combinatorics, particularly in the field of discrete probability, while Goren specializes in the field of arithmetic geometry, including applications to cryptography and graph theory. Both are professors of mathematics at McGill University.

According to Karl Dilcher, former Chair of the CMS Publications Committee:

“For the success of a high-level scientific journal it is essential to have Editors-in-Chief who are internationally recognized in their fields. After 10 years of excellent service and leadership by Henry Kim and Robert McCann of the University of Toronto, we were delighted to appoint Louigi Addario-Berry and Eyal Goren of McGill University as new Editors-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics. Both are leading researchers in their fields who have the editorial skills and vision to steer this journal through the current climate of change and uncertainty in the publishing sector and at the same time maintain, if not increase, the journal's standing as one of the world's best mathematics journals.”

Addario-Berry received his Ph.D. from McGill University in 2006. He was Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Oxford and Professeur Adjoint at Université de Montreal, before joining the faculty at McGill University in 2009. He has held visiting positions at École Polytechnique, Paris and ENS Lyon, was Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Oxford, and Simons Visiting Fellow at Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge. He has previously served on the CMS Research Committee, Board of Directors and as Vice-President (Quebec region), and was the scientific director of the 2015 CMS Winter Meeting in Montreal. Addario-Berry was awarded the CMS Coxeter-James Prize in 2016.

Goren received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in January 1997 under the supervision of Prof. E. de Shalit. Following that he had held postdoctoral positions at Harvard (as a Rothschild Fellow), at Utrecht and at Concordia and McGill (as a CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellow), before joining McGill University as faculty in 1999. He was a Forchheimer Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University. Goren has previously served on the CMS Publication Committee and Board of Directors, and as an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics (CJM) and the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin (CMB).

Source: Canadian Mathematical Society

Special Call for donations to the Carl Herz Foundation

Posted Monday, December 19, 2016

Now, more than ever, is a good moment to support the Foundation’s activities. The ministry has not yet renewed the ISM’s funding and it has been confirmed that the new regulations on retroactive funding will result in a decrease of the current year’s funding of the institute. (More information on the grant application here.) Consequently, I am renouncing my ISM director’s salary from January 1, 2017 until the ISM’s funding situation is resolved.

In a strong show of support, the former ISM director, Olivier Collin has pledged the Foundation $200/month for the next year!

I would like to remind you that donations to the Carl Herz Foundations may be used for scholarships as well as Accromath and the Carl Herz prize, that a small amount is better than nothing, and that your donation is tax deductible.

Donations can be made through the Foundation page or by contacting Alexandra Haedrich.

Thank you for your support.

Alina Stancu
Director, ISM

Registration open for Winter sessions of the Montreal Math Circle

Posted Thursday, December 1, 2016

The Montreal Math Circle is an enrichment program which offers an occasion for students interested in mathematics to solve challenging problems at their grade level. The circle aims to bring pleasure and confidence to children while doing mathematics.

Three new sessions are now open for registration:

January 15 - February 19, 2017

February 26 - April 9, 2017 (no class on March 26 - Kangaroo contest)

April 23 - May 28, 2017

To register, click here.

For more information, please feel free to send an email at montrealmathclub@gmail.com. This project is piloted by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Concordia University and by the ISM.

Henri Darmon to Receive 2017 AMS Cole Prize in Number Theory

Posted Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Henri Darmon of McGill University will receive the 2017 AMS Cole Prize in Number Theory. Darmon is honored "for his contributions to the arithmetic of elliptic curves and modular forms." The work of Henri Darmon has centered on a major open problem in mathematics known as the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. It is one of the seven "Millennium Prize Problems," the solutions for which the Clay Mathematics Institute has offered prizes of US$1-million each.

CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowship deadline: December 9, 2016

Posted Monday, October 3, 2016

CRM-ISM postdoctoral fellowships are awarded to promising researchers who have recently obtained or expect to obtain a Ph.D. in the mathematical sciences. The deadline for the CRM-ISM postdoctoral competition is December 9, 2016.

To apply, click here.

Mathematical Contests for middle and high school students coming up this Fall

Posted Thursday, September 8, 2016

The Montreal Math Circle is mentoring students who are interested in participating in math contests. Please see the upcoming competitions listed below:

The Tournament of Towns contest, autumn edition 2016.
The O-level contest will be held on October 9, while the A-level competition will be held on October 23.
For details concerning the contest, please consult the page:
http://www.concordia.ca/artsci/math-stats/about/math-outreach/FormulaofUnity1.html
If interested in participating, please contact as at montrealmathclub@gmail.com  by October 1st. Please, specify name, grade level and contact information.

COMC (Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge) to be held November 3rd.
For details concerning the contest, please consult the page:
https://cms.math.ca/Competitions/COMC/2016/
If interested in participating, please contact as at montrealmathclub@gmail.com  by September 15th. Please, specify name, grade level, contact information and language preference (English, French). There is a contest fee of $13.

AMC 8 (American Mathematics Competition) to be held November 15th.
For details concerning the contest, please consult the page:
http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/amc-8
If interested in participating, please contact as at montrealmathclub@gmail.com  by October  10st. Please, specify name, grade level, and contact information. There is a contest fee of $8.

Registration open for Fall sessions of the Montreal Math Circle

Posted Friday, September 2, 2016

The Montreal Math Circle is an enrichment program which offers an occasion for students interested in mathematics to solve challenging problems at their grade level. The circle aims to bring pleasure and confidence to children while doing mathematics.

Two new sessions are now open for registration:

October 2 - November 6, 2016

November 13 - December 18, 2016

To register, click here.

For more information, please feel free to send an email at montrealmathclub@gmail.com. This project is piloted by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Concordia University and by the ISM.

Vincent Genest awarded the CMS doctoral prize

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2016

The 2014 Carl Herz Prize winner, Vincent Genest has been awarded the CMS doctoral prize for his PhD thesis entitled “Algebraic Structures, Superintegrable Systems and Orthogonal Polynomials,” completed in 2015 at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Luc Vinet.

Recipient of 2016 Governor General’s Academic Gold and the 2016 joint award of the Winnipeg Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Canadian Association of Physicists for the best thesis in theoretical physics, Vincent Genest is currently Instructor in Pure Mathematics and NSERC postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Boston, MA).

Dr. Genest will receive his award and present a lecture at the CMS Winter Meeting to be held in Niagara Falls, Ontario, December 2-5, 2016.

Henri Darmon (McGill) to give an Abel lecture

Posted Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Abel Laureate Sir Andrew Wiles will give his prize lecture at the University of Oslo on the 25th of May,  followed by two Abel Lectures by Henri Darmon and Manjul Bhargava. Simon Singh will then give the popular lecture From Fermat's Last Theorem to Homer's Last Theorem.

Jonathan Belletête awarded the 2016 Carl Herz Prize

Posted Wednesday, April 27, 2016

We are pleased to inform you that Jonathan Belletête, a PhD student in physics at the Université de Montréal, is the 2016 recipient of the Carl Herz Prize.

The 2016 Carl Herz Prize has been awarded to Mr. Belletête for his contribution to the study of a fusion product between representations of Temperley-Lieb algebras. The Temberley-Lieb algebras are a family of associative algebras appearing in mathematics, for example in the study of tangles and their invariants, and in mechanical statistics where some of their elements capture the Boltzmann weights of several two-dimensional models. The fusion product has certain characteristics of the tensor product of two representations of a group algebra, but it differs in that the two initial representations and the result of their product are generally the representations of three distinct algebras.

Many hypotheses conjecture that a particular fusion product on Temperley-Lieb algebras should capture the properties of a similar product in algebras of vertex operators and in conformal field theories. Mr. Belletête's works have shown, amongst other things, that the two rings of the fusion product, that of the Temperley-Lieb algebras and that of the minimal family of conformal field theories, coincide. They therefore add a rigorous argument, be it partial, in support of these hypotheses.

Mr. Belletête obtained his Bachelor's of science degree from the Université de Montréal in 2010 (joint mathematics and physics). His Master's in physics, under the supervision of Manu Paranjape, earned him fourth place in the 2013 Awards for Essays on Gravitation competition by the Gravity Research Foundation. He shall soon defend his thesis, written under Yvan Saint-Aubin's supervision. This summer, he will begin a postdoctoral fellowship at CEA (Saclay, Paris) under Hubert Saleur's supervision.

Mr. Belletête will present his work at the 19th Colloque pan-québécois des étudiants de l’ISM, to be held at UQAM, May 13-15.

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 travel grant, allowing the recipient to present his or her research at a meeting. This year’s Selection Committee consisted of Line Baribeau (Laval University, Dmitry Korotkin (Concordia University), Matilde Lalín (Université de Montréal) et David Stephens (McGill University).

Middle school team from Montreal Math Circle wins first place in Canada at Purple Comet Math Contest

Posted Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Mentored by Ildiko Pelczer at the Montreal Math Circle, a team of middle school students,and a team of high school students participated this month for the first time in the International mathematical contest named Purple Comet. The middle school team, formed by students from various schools hence what is called a mixed team, won the first place among Canadian mixed teams.

Congratulations go to the members of the team: Allison Tsypin - grade 7, Bruno Cisneros Pelczer - grade 8, Danylo Perkov - grade 8, Dmytro Perkov - grade 8 and Jean Zatarain - grade 8.

Adrian Iovita and Adam Oberman selected as Simons Fellows in mathematics

Posted Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Two ISM professors, Adrian Iovita from Concordia University and Adam Oberman from McGill University have been selected as Simons Fellows in 2016.

Dani Wise awarded the 2016 Jeffrey Williams Award

Posted Wednesday, March 30, 2016

McGill University Professor Daniel T. Wise is the recipient of the 2016 Jeffery-Williams Prize. Wise is widely recognized as one of the top geometric group theorists in the world, and the best of his generation. His work has had a profound impact, not only in the immediate subject of geometric group theory, but also playing a key role in the solution of outstanding open problems in the theory of 3-manifolds.

One of Wise's major achievements is his work on special cube complexes, and quasi-convex hierarchies of hyperbolic groups. His program to study 3-manifolds is described by one reviewer as "revolutionary and remarkable, was not expected by anyone before him, and is clearly the biggest breakthrough in 3-dimensional topology since Perelman’s resolution of the Poincare Conjecture".

The importance and originality of Wise's work have been recognized through several major awards, most notably an invited address at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians and the 2013 Veblen Prize of the American Mathematical Society, the most prestigious prize that is awarded in geometry and topology -- Wise is the first Canadian mathematician to have received the Veblen Prize since its inception in 1964. Wise was the recipient of the 2016 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize, and was selected as Henri Poincare Chair at the Institute Henri Poincare for 2015-2016. In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Wise received his Ph.D. in 1996 from Princeton University under the supervision of Martin Bridson. He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at U.C. Berkeley in 1996-1997 and H.C. Wang Assistant Professor at Cornell University from 1997-2000. He was Visiting Assistant Professor at Brandeis University in 2000-2001, before joining the Mathematics Department at McGill University in 2001, where he is currently James McGill Professor.

The Jeffery-Williams Prize was inaugurated to recognize mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research. The first award was presented in 1968 and is named after Ralph Jeffery and Lloyd Williams, who were two influential CMS board members.

Source: Canadian Mathematical Society

Jean-Philippe Lessard awarded CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award in Applied Mathematics

Posted Thursday, March 24, 2016

CAIMS and PIMS have annouced that Professor Jean-Philippe Lessard of Université Laval is the winner of the 2016 CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award in Applied Mathematics. Professor Lessard obtained his PhD in 2007 from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He held postdoctoral positions at the Free University of Amsterdam, Rutgers and Princeton, and is now associate professor at Université Laval. He is also a member of the Groupe Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Éléments Finis (GIREF), which brings together researchers and research groups from a number of universities  to promote research, development, specialist training and interaction with industry, in the field of modeling and numerical simulation.
 
Professor Lessard’s research interests are in dynamical systems. In particular, he uses and develops rigorous computational methods, topological methods and analytic estimates for the study of solutions of  partial differential equations, delay differential equations and ordinary differential equations. Professor Lessard has made substantial contributions to the theory of rigorous computing, and was cited for being “one of the world leading experts in the area” and "at the forefront of applied mathematics in Canada, blending traditional analysis with traditional computation to build something entirely new."
 
Professor Lessard will receive his award and deliver a plenary lecture at the 2016 Annual CAIMS meeting at the University of Alberta in June, 2016.

Congratulations to Allison Tsypin of Pointe Claire: For the first time a Quebec student is admitted to the prestigious MathPath Summer Program

Posted Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Winner of the 2015 Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest, Allison Tsypin is a 12 year-old student in Secondaire I with many other outstanding accomplishments in mathematics and chess, who you may see sometimes at the Montreal Math Circle. Allison’s latest milestone is her acceptance to the prestigious U.S.-based mathematics enrichment summer program called MathPath. Every year, the participating students are selected via a strict admission test, with only 20% of places going to students who do not go to school in the United States. Allison is the first student from Quebec to be admitted into this competitive program. To help defray some of the camp expenses, airfare, U.S. medical insurance, and such, for her family, a registered Canadian charity, providing federal and provincial receipts for tax purposes, accepts donations on Allison's behalf.

Louigi Addario-Berry awarded the Coxeter-James Prize

Posted Monday, March 21, 2016

McGill University Associate Professor Louigi Addario-Berry is the recipient of the 2016 Coxeter-James Prize for his outstanding contributions to mathematical research. Louigi Addario-Berry works at the interface of probability and combinatorics, and “has emerged as one of the leaders of his generation in the area of discrete probability” one referee said.

A challenging and exciting area of investigation in probability and statistical physics is to mathematically define and study random energy landscapes. As in the case of a river system, an extraordinarily large number of these models turn out to have an underlying branching structure. One of the aims of Addario-Berry's research is to investigate the structure and scaling limits of typical and exceptional paths in probabilistic discrete models and in their scaling limits, and in particular in systems containing a phase transition or exhibiting some form of tree-like behaviour.

“Addario-Berry has resolved problems which have confounded experts for decades” fellow McGill University faculty members said in their nomination letter. “His ability to bring together researchers from across a wide spectrum of domains makes him a leader in many exciting research projects. The fact that he has almost as many collaborators (42) as papers bears witness to the important role he plays in bringing diverse research communities together”.

Addario-Berry received his Ph.D. from McGill University under the supervision of Bruce Reed. He was Marie Curie Fellow at University of Oxford and Professeur Adjoint at Université de Montreal, before joining the faculty at McGill University in 2009. He has held visiting positions at École Polytechnique, Paris and ENS Lyon, was Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Oxford, and Simons Visiting Fellow at Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge.

Awarded by the Canadian Mathematical Society, the Coxeter-James Prize was inaugurated in 1978 to recognize young mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research. The award is named on behalf of two former CMS presidents, Donald Coxeter, who is recognized as one of the world’s best geometers, and Ralph Duncan James, who was a great contributor to mathematical development in Canada.

Jean-Marie De Koninck awarded 2016 Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award

Posted Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The Fields Institute has announced that Professor Jean-Marie De Koninck of Laval University is this year’s recipient of the Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award Recognizing Innovation and Excellence in Mathematics Education.

De Koninck has worked to promote mathematics and mathematics education for more than 40 years, both within the scholarly community as well as through many and varied outreach programs engaging students, teachers and the public at large such as SMAC.

Each year the Fields Institute selects a candidate from a group of individuals that have shown great enthusiasm for enhancing the learning environment and displaying novel ways of teaching mathematics. 

Our congratulations go out to Professor De Konnck for this outstanding recognition!

In memory of Syed Twareque Ali

Posted Tuesday, February 2, 2016

It is with profound sadness that we report the death of our colleague and former ISM director Professor Syed Twareque Ali on the 24th of January 2016 whilst on an academic visit to Malaysia. He is survived by his wife Fauzia, their son Syed Furrokh-Nabeel Ali (Samira Karim), and grandson Syed Aydin Karim Ali.

Twareque completed his doctoral studies in mathematical physics at the University of Rochester in1973.  After periods of research and teaching in ICTP Trieste, University of Toronto, UPEI, and ITP Clausthal, Germany, he joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Concordia University in 1981.  He was promoted to full professor  in 1990 and directed the ISM from 2003 to 2006.

Twareque pursued research in many areas of mathematics, mostly in analysis, functional analysis, and quantum mechanics.  He published his work with numerous scientists around the world in over 120 research articles and in a number of books. He was always studying and preparing lectures, now wavelets, now differential geometry, now group theory. His presentations were structured, lucid, interesting, deep, and, before the fashion of electronic displays, by means of perfectly clear handwriting on the blackboard. 

He was not inclined to profess an overt teaching philosophy but an observer might infer that it was ‘empowerment through mathematical understanding’.  He was himself impressively erudite with an eclectic taste that included history, philosophy and literature, and the mastery of at least five European languages in addition to Bengali and Hindi, and some Farsi and Arabic.

He was extremely generous and engendered enormous affection in his students and colleagues. He had an amusing story or anecdote for almost every occasion – often related to other mathematicians he knew from his extensive travels – and had a repertoire of funny jokes that naturally prompted his distinctive laughter.

His inspiring presence and cheerful demeanor will be sorely missed by us all.

The ISM's 25th anniversary!

Posted Wednesday, January 6, 2016

This shall be a big year for the ISM, one that the Quebec mathematical community should  celebrate collectively: founded in 1991, the ISM will turn 25 this year! The Institute’s vision, scope and impact have grown immensely since its founding, but the spirit of simplicity and collaboration instilled by its founders still reigns and guides our actions. It is thanks to the contributions of all members of the ISM, professors and institutions, that we can carry out our mission so successfully and continue to take on new challenges.

To mark this important anniversary, we will be organizing several outreach activities to reach a broader public and launching a fundraising campaign. Our goals in the long term are to establish new scholarships, thus improving our recruitment potential, and to become more involved in enriching the mathematics programs offered in Quebec’s schools and cegeps.

Dani Wise awarded the CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize

Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Professor Wise is widely recognized as one of the top geometric group theorists in the world. His fundamental research contributions lie at the core of what is widely considered as the most important development in geometry and topology since Perelman's celebrated proof of the Poincaré Conjecture, namely the proof of Thurston's virtually fibered conjecture for hyperbolic three-manifolds. It has also been central to the resolution of major open problems such as Waldhausen's virtual Haken conjecture and Baumslag's famous 1968 conjecture which states that every one-relator group with torsion is residually finite. Over the past 40 years, the works of Thurston and Waldhausen have been central to the development of 3-manifold topology and hyperbolic geometry. The work of Wise followed a totally different direction, which he developed with exceptional insight and virtuosity over more than 15 years, leading to the spectacular results mentioned above.
 
The profound impact and originality of Wise's work have been recognized through major awards, most notably the Veblen Prize of the American Mathematical Society, which he shared in 2013 with Ian Agol (Berkeley). He delivered an invited address at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in Canada, also in 2014.

Dani Wise received his PhD from Princeton in 1996 and, following Postdoctoral positions at Berkeley and Cornell, joined the Mathematics department of McGill in 2001, where he is now James McGill Professor.

Louis-Pierre Arguin awarded the André-Aisenstadt Prize in mathematics

Posted Monday, November 16, 2015

The International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) is happy to announce that Louis-Pierre Arguin from the Université de Montréal and the City University of New York (Baruch College and Graduate Center) is the 2015 André Aisenstadt Prize recipient.

Dr. Arguin obtained his M.Sc. degree in physics at the Université de Montréal in 2002 under the supervision of Yvan Saint-Aubin and his Ph.D. in mathematics at Princeton University in 2007 under the superivison of Michael Aizenman. Arguin's research interests lie in probability theory and its applications to mathematical physics and other fields. One of his most spectacular breakthroughs came in a series of joint papers with Anton Bovier and Nicola Kistler on the extreme values of branching Brownian motion. This work has received considerable international recognition and was the subject of a Séminaire Bourbaki in March 2013. The impact of the methods developed by Arguin and his collaborators goes beyond probability theory. In particular, Arguin, Belius and Harper have applied this approach to probe the conjecture of Fyodorov, Hiary and Keating stating that the maxima of the Riemann zeta function on a bounded interval of the critical line have statistics similar to branching Brownian motion.

In an earlier work with Aizenman, Arguin developed a new approach to a long-standing open problem in statistical mechanics now referred to as the Parisi Ultrametricity Conjecture. The conjecture is about a large class of interacting particle systems, called spin glasses. The ideas of Aizenman and Arguin were central to the construction of a rigorous theory of spin glasses, notably in the work of Panchenko, who proved the Ultrametricity Conjecture in the most general case in 2012.

Source: Centre de recherches mathématiques

Frédéric Gourdeau awarded the Abel-Gauthier Prize

Posted Thursday, November 5, 2015

On the occasion of the closing ceremony of the AMQ Conference held last October 17, the 2015 Abel-Gauthier prize, designating the personality of the year, was awarded to Frédéric Gourdeau, professor at Laval University, in recognition of:

  • his founding of the Association québécoise des jeux mathématiques (AQJM), which he still directs, finding financial partners, organizing competitions throughout Quebec and organizing the participation of the Quebec finalists in the international finals;
  • his role as member of the editorial board of the magazine Accromath since its creation in 2006;
  • his primordial role as organizer of the Semaine des maths, held at Laval University for the past two years;
  • the fact that the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) awarded him the Adrien-Pouliot Prize in 2014, in recognition of his exceptional contribution to the teaching of mathematics in the country;
  • the fact that since 2011 he represents Canada on the International Commission on the Teaching of Mathematics;
  • the fact that he did a very efficient job as treasurer of the AMQ in 2009 and 2010, consolidating the financial situation and improving it in the process;
  • his contribution as head organizer of the AMQ collegiate mathematics camp held at Laval University from 2012-2014.

New Montreal Math Circle

Posted Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Starting on October 11, the Montreal Math Circle is an enrichment program which offers an occasion for students interested in mathematics to solve challenging problems at their grade level. The circle aims at bringing pleasure and confidence to children while doing mathematics. For more information, please feel free to send an email at montrealmathclub@gmail.com. This project is piloted by the Department of Mathematics nd Statistics of Concordia University and by the ISM.

Christian Genest elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Posted Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Christian Genest, professor of Statistics at McGill University and ISM Director from 2012 to 2015, has just been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. The induction ceremony will be held in Victoria, British Columbia, on November 27. For additional information, see here.

Guillaume Roy-Fortin winner of the 2015 Carl Herz Prize

Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2015

We are pleased to inform you that Guillaume Roy-Fortin, PhD student in mathematics at the Université de Montréal, is the 2015 recipient of the Carl Herz Prize.

Guillaume Roy-Fortin has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for his contributions to the study of Laplace eigenfunctions on Riemannian surfaces. He investigated the link between the size of the nodal sets and the average local growth of eigenfunctions. Such a connection was  outlined in a 2005 paper by F. Nazarov, L. Polterovich and M. Sodin, and Guillaume succeeded to prove an important result that has been announced by these authors. The approach used by Roy-Fortin involved a combination of "hard analysis" (e.g. Carleman estimates) with other techniques, such as the theory of quasi-conformal mappings and integral geometry.  The problem studied by Guillaume is closely related to the celebrated Yau's conjecture on the size of the nodal sets of eigenfunctions, which is one of the most outstanding open problems in geometric spectral theory.

Guillaume Roy-Fortin completed a BSc in psychology at Université de Sherbrooke in 2004 and a second BSc in mathematics at the Université de Montréal in 2010. He will soon defend his Ph.D. thesis, written under the supervision of Iosif Polterovich. In September 2015,  Guillaume will join the mathematics faculty at  Northwestern University as a Ralph Boas Assistant Professor.

Mr. Roy-Fortin will present his work at the 18th Colloque pan-québécois des étudiants de l’ISM, to be held at HEC Montréal, May 15-17. You can congratulate him there in anyone of the five languages he speaks fluently.

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 travel grant, allowing the recipient to present his or her research at a meeting. This year’s Selection Committee consisted of Chantal David (Concordia University), Éric Marchand (Université de Sherbrooke), Jean-Christophe Nave (McGill University), and Thomas Ransford (Université Laval).

Alina Stancu appointed Director of the ISM

Posted Thursday, April 23, 2015

It is a great pleasure to inform you that Dr. Alina Stancu, professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Concordia University, has been appointed director of the ISM as of June 1st. She will serve a three-year term.

Dr. Stancu obtained her PhD in Mathematics in 1996 from the University of Rochester with the solution to a conjecture posed by Jean Taylor. Before joining Concordia University, she was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at Case Western Reserve University and an Associate Research Scientist at the Courant Institute in New York. A member of the CRM Analysis Laboratory, her research focuses on convex geometry, curvature flows, and isoperimetric-type problems.

Jean-Marie De Koninck and Frédéric Gourdeau are awarded Promoscience grants

Posted Thursday, April 9, 2015

Two teams from Laval University have been awarded PromoScience grants to continue their mathematics outreach work with young people.

The project SMAC (sciences et mathématiques en action), headed by Jean-Marie De Koninck, develops on-line games and offers shows in schools and for the general public.

Frédéric Gourdeau was awarded the grant for the International Mathematics and Logic Championships and for mathematics week.

PromoScience is a program funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Carl Herz Scholarship nomination deadline: March 30, 2015

Posted Monday, March 30, 2015

The Carl Herz Prize, awarded annually, recognizes a research contribution to mathematics or statistics made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM members universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The prize is worth $4,000, and is accompanied by a travel grant of $1,000, allowing the recipient to present his or her results at a scientific conference. The prize is awarded by a committee of internationally renowned mathematicians who are members of the ISM.

For more information, see the scholarships page.

Octav Cornea and Henri Darmon selected as Simons Fellows in Mathematics

Posted Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Two ISM professors, Octav Cornea (Université de Montréal) and Henri Darmon (McGill University), have  been selected as Simons Fellows in Mathematics by the Simons Foundation. The 40 awardees in Mathematics for 2015 (four from Canadian universities and the rest from the United States) are distinguished mathematicians at all levels of their respective careers.

Christiane Rousseau appointed member of the Scientific Board of the International Basic Sciences Programme of UNESCO

Posted Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Christiane Rousseau, member of the ISM and professor at the Département de mathématiques et de statistique of the Université de Montréal has been appointed a member of the prestigious Scientific Board of the International Basic Sciences Programme (IBSP) of UNESCO for a three-year term from 2015 to 2017.

ISM Summer Scholarships deadline: March 16, 2015

Posted Wednesday, January 28, 2015

ISM Summer scholarships, offered to undergraduate students in mathematics and statistics who are registered in one of the ISM member universities, allow selected candidates to carry out research under the supervision of a postdoctoral fellow, a doctoral student or an assistant professor affiliated with one of the ISM member universities. For more information, see the scholarships page.

ISM Graduate Scholarship internal deadline: March 2, 2015

Posted Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Students registered in a graduate program at one of the ISM member universities are invited to apply for an ISM Graduate Scholarship. The application must be submitted to the student's host Department by  March 2, 2015. For more information, please see the scholarship page.

Frédéric Gourdeau awarded the Adrien Pouliot Award

Posted Monday, December 8, 2014

Frédéric Gourdeau of Université Laval is the recipient of the 2014 Adrien Pouliot Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to mathematics education in Canada. The award was presented at the 2014 CMS Winter Meeting in Hamilton.

The Adrien Pouliot Award was inaugurated in 1995 to recognize individuals who have made significant and sustained contributions to mathematics education in Canada. The award is named for Adrien Pouliot, the second CMS President, who taught mathematics at Université Laval for 50 years and was instrumental in developing Laval’s engineering and science faculty.

Xiangwen Zhang awarded the CMS Doctoral Prize

Posted Monday, December 8, 2014

The 2012 Carl Herz prize winner, Xiangwen Zhang has been awarded the CMS Doctoral Prize for his thesis "Complex Monge-Ampère Equation and its Applications to Complex Geometry," completed at McGill University under the supervision of Pengfei Guan. Xiangwen is now a Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University.

Launch of new ISM website

Posted Thursday, December 4, 2014

We are proud to announce that the ISM has a new website.

Attractive and functional, the site contains a wealth of information on all of the ISM's programs. We hope that you will like it.

Please promote the new site and update your links. The old site will no longer be updated and shall be officially closed in the Spring.

Dani Wise elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Posted Thursday, October 30, 2014

The Royal Society of Canada has announced that Professor Dani Wise of McGill University, well-known for his works in geometric group theory, shall become a fellow on November 22. He will thus join ten other ISM professors who are fellows of the Society.

Dmitry Jakobson appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Annales mathématiques du Québec

Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2014

On behalf of the ISM, I am pleased to announce that Professor Dmitry Jakobson, from McGill University, has recently been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Annales mathématiques du Québec (AMQ). His three-year term will begin January 1, 2015.

Dmitry Jakobson is a Peter Redpath Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University. He received his BSc from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991, and obtained his PhD from Princeton University in 1995. After holding postdoctoral fellowships at the California Institute of Technology and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago for one year prior to joining McGill University in 2000.

In recommending the appointment of Dmitry Jakobson to the helm of the AMQ, the Search Committee chaired by François Lalonde expressed its conviction that the journal would benefit greatly from the expertise of this very active researcher, whose work is at the crossroads of geometric analysis, the theory of partial differential equations, and mathematical physics. Dmitry Jakobson has largely contributed, among other things, to the study of spectra and eigenfunctions of Laplace- and Dirac-type operators. His interests also include ergodic theory, probability theory, number theory, and graph theory. He was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2001 and was appointed a William Dawson Fellow by McGill University in 2003. In addition, he received the G. de B. Robinson Award from the Canadian Mathematical Society in 2008.

There is every reason to believe that the AMQ will continue to grow and prosper under the leadership of Dmitry Jakobson.We wish him every success in his new position. We also express our deep gratitude to the past Editor-in-Chief, Professor Claude Levesque, for his outstanding work since 2008.

Christian Genest, PhD, PStat
ISM Director

Quebec Mathematical Sciences Colloquium

Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2014

This year, after a decade of existence, the CRM-ISM colloquium is having a makeover.

Here are the main changes:

  • The CRM-ISM mathematics and statistics colloquia are replaced by a new event, the Colloque des sciences mathématiques du Québec which will cover research fields of the community participating in CRM and ISM activities.
  • Organizers of the 2014-2015 theme year have paid special attention to choosing excellent communicators, hopefully making the event attractive in particular to the graduate students.
  • Series of talks are to be held in Montreal, Quebec and Sherbrooke.
  • From now on, the Montreal event will be held on Thursdays at 4:00 pm. This year first colloquium will take place on October 2, 2014.
  • Whenever possible talks related to annual CRM Prizes will be given on Thursdays at the same time and interspersed between colloquium presentations.
  • As in the past, budget for the event is provided by the CRM and the ISM, by CRM laboratories and by the GERAD.
  • And on a less scientific note, post-conference wine and cheese is being replaced by pre-conference coffee and cookies.

All colleagues, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students are warmly welcomed.

Christian Genest, Director, ISM
Luc Vinet, Director, CRM

Statistics at the Service of the Community: A Tribute to Louis-Paul Rivest for his 60th birthday

Posted Monday, September 1, 2014

A symposium was held at Université Laval on August 29 to mark the 60th birthday of Louis-Paul Rivest and the extent of his contributions to science these past 30 years. More than 80 people attended the event, which the ISM sponsored as it was also intended to promote statistics as a field of study and research. The program, rich and diverse in the image of Louis-Paul's career, featured some of his former students and his closest collaborators. Their talks, purposely designed to be accessible to a broad audience, received a lot of praise. For more details (in French), see http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/2014/Rivest14/index.php.

Expansion of the Undergraduate Research Scholarship program

Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2014

To respond to the increasing demand, the undergraduate research scholarship program shall be expanded in the summer of 2015 to allow not only postdoctoral fellows, but also doctoral students and assistant professors, to supervise the scholars.

Moreover, funding for the program shall be increased by $10,000, the equivalent of four full-time scholarships. Both the CRM and the ISM have agreed to increase their respective contributions by $5,000 to ensure that more students can discover research in the mathematical sciences, often a defining experience.

HEC Montréal becomes a member of the ISM

Posted Thursday, May 1, 2014

On May 1, 2014, HEC Montréal became an institutional member of the Institut des sciences mathématiques. This is excellent news for the ISM which can count on the expertise of the new member professors to enrich and consolidate the ISM programs and course offerings, notably in financial mathematics, probability and statistics.

2014 Carl Herz Prize winner

Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2014

We are pleased to inform you that Vincent Genest, PhD student in mathematical physics at the Université de Montréal, is the 2014 recipient of the Carl Herz Prize.

Mr. Genest has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for his innovative interpretation of multivariate Charlier, Krawtchouk, and Meixner polynomials in physical terms. The characterizations that he obtained allowed him to discover many important properties of these classes of orthogonal functions and to open up new perspectives for their use in mathematics and physics.

Mr. Genest completed his BSc in physics at Université Laval in 2010 and his MSc in mathematical physics at the Université de Montréal in 2011 under the supervision of Yvan Saint-Aubin. His research focuses on representation theory, symmetries in quantum mechanics, and the study of algebraic properties of orthogonal polynomials and special functions, in view of their application to integrable and superintegrable systems. Since he joined the Centre de recherches mathématiques, he has authored nearly 20 papers in highly respected journals, most of which in collaboration with his PhD advisor, Luc Vinet, and Ukrainian mathematician Alexei Zhedanov.

Mr. Genest will present his work at the 17th Colloque pan-québécois des étudiants de l'ISM, to be held at Université Laval, May 16-18.

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 travel grant, allowing the recipient to present his or her research at a meeting. This year's Selection Committee consisted of Olivier Collin (UQAM), Galia Dafni (Concordia University), Niky Kamran (McGill University), and Louis-Paul Rivest (Université Laval).

2014 ISM Undergraduate Research Scholars

Posted Friday, April 25, 2014

The winners of the 2014 ISM Undergraduate Research Scholarships are:

  • Xuesi Cai (McGill University)
  • Jaël Champagne-Gareau (UQAM)
  • Thomas Davignon (Université de Montréal)
  • François De L'Isle (Université de Montréal)
  • Ryan Gibara (Concordia University)
  • Geneviève Provost (Université de Montréal)
  • Sarah Sekheri (UQAM)

2014-15 CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellows

Posted Friday, April 25, 2014

In 2014-15, five new CRM-ISM postdoctoral fellows shall be welcomed in our universities:

Stephan Ehlen will come to Montreal from Germany where he completed his doctorate in 2013 at the TU Darmstast under the supervision of Jan H. Bruhner. He works in number theory, in particular on automorphic forms, Shimura varieties and the Kudla program. He will work at McGill University under the supervision of Henri Darmon and Eyal Goren.

Alastair Irving is currently finishing his doctorate under the supervision of Professor D. R. Heath-Brown at Oxford. He works in analytical number theory, a research area he will continue to develop at the University of Montreal under the supervision of Andrew Granville and Dimitrios Koukoulopoulos.

Amy Pang, originally from Great Britain and a resident of Hong Kong, will soon complete her doctorate at Stanford University under the supervision of Persi Diaconis. Her thesis is on Hopf algebras and Markov chains. She will work at UQAM under the supervision of François Bergeron, Christophe Hohlweg, Christophe Reutenauer and Franco Saliola.

Boaz Slomka shall come to Montreal from Israel where he is completing a thesis at the University of Tel Aviv under the supervision of Shiri Artstein-Avidan. He works in the field of convex geometry and asymptotic geometric analysis. He will be working under the supervision of Alina Stancu (Concordia) and Dmitry Jakobson (McGill).

Originally from China, Weiwei Wu completed his doctorate in 2012 under the supervision of Tian-Jun Li at the University of Minnesota. Currently at Michigan State University, he works in symplectic geometry and topology. He shall work with Octav Cornea and François Lalonde at the University of Montreal.

Renewal of ISM grant

Posted Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The Minister of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, the Honorable Pierre Duchesne, announced today that he has awarded the Institut des sciences mathématiques (ISM) an annual grant of $329,000 for the academic years 2013-2014 to 2015-2016. This funding will allow the ISM to carry out its mission and continue its activities.

The Québec government has funded the ISM since its foundation in 1991. Since 2007-2008, the grant has been $329,000 per year. Collectively contributing $191,000 per year, the Institute's partner universities provide the remainder of the funding. The ISM is composed of eight Québec universities: Bishop's, Concordia, Laval, McGill, Université de Montréal, Université de Sherbrooke, UQTR, and UQAM. The member universities have mandated the latter to administer the Institute.

In the letter that was sent today to the ISM Director, Mr. Duchesne writes: "The Institute continues to distinguish itself by its innovative approach, the strong degree of attraction of its funding programs for students, and the vitality of its activities, be they for graduate students or the general public. I am happy to associate myself with this initiative, which has proven itself over its 22 years of existence."

The Director of the ISM, Christian Genest, was delighted with this news. As he explains: "the ISM is an eloquent example of what Québec universities can accomplish when they work together. The unified doctoral school formed by the ISM is a magnificent incubator for mathematical talent and a point of attraction worldwide. Its activities and publications, such as Accromath and the Annales mathématiques du Québec, contribute to a strong presence of Québec on the international scene. It is this mission that the new grant from the Ministry will allow us to pursue, and the mathematical community is delighted. It is a vote of confidence of which we shall prove ourselves to be worthy," concluded Professor Genest.

For more information, see the MESRST press release.

2014 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize awarded to Professor Niky Kamran

Posted Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The CRM - Fields - PIMS Prize for 2014 has been awarded to  Niky Kamran, professor at McGill University and member of the ISM. He has spent his career in Canada, working in the areas of analysis and differential geometry. His interests are far reaching, with the two main directions of his research being in the theory of exterior differential systems and Lie theory, a central area of the geometric analysis of systems of partial differential equations, and the mathematical analysis of general relativity.

Prof. Kamran's work on the topic of exterior differential systems has its roots in the foundational insight of E. Cartan, which describes local geometrical objects in terms of systems of differential forms which are invariant under diffeomorphisms and other infinite dimensional Lie (pseudo)group actions. Prof. Kamran's principal contributions have been in the theory of existence of solutions and the classification of infinite dimensional symmetries. His publications on isotropy subgroups of transitive analytic Lie pseudogroups of infinite type are definitive, and involve global elements, such as the cohomology of certain differential complexes, and local, which for example include Malgrange's estimates arising from his proof of the Cartan-Kahler theorem.

Prof. Kamran's contributions to the mathematical analysis of the Einstein equations of general relativity are extremely influential as well, in an area that is currently running as a "hot topic". His work, in a series of important papers with co-authors F. Finster, J. Smoller and S.-T. Yau, addresses the basic question of stability of Lorentzian space-times, something that is fundamental to our understanding of present day cosmology. The key in such questions about nonlinear systems of evolution equations is to understand on a deep level the solution operator for the linearized equations; Prof. Kamran and collaborators have given a systematic treatment of the `black-hole' space-times, namely of the Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions to Einstein's equations. His most recent work addresses the anti-deSitter solutions as the central object of interest in the approach to quantum gravity known as the Anti-deSitter - Conformal Field Theory correspondence.

Prof. Kamran has published over 125 scientific articles. In addition he is a superb expositor, and has contributed influential survey articles and monographs. His work is remarkable for its brilliant, original insights, in combination with a deep mathematical culture, representing a wide and varied range of topics of interest. Niky's contributions will have a lasting scientific impact on Canadian mathematics and on the global mathematical community.

Giant Leap by CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellow

Posted Wednesday, November 20, 2013

James Maynard, recipient of a 2013 CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowship, has just announced a spectacular result in number theory which represents enormous progress in the quest to prove the Twin Primes Conjecture. This longstanding conjecture postulates that that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers which differ by 2 (as do, for example, 5 and 7). In April 2013, Yitang Zhang (University of New Hampshire) caused a sensation in the mathematical world by proving a weaker version of this conjecture, namely the existence of a finite bound B such that there are infinitely many pairs of distinct primes which differ by no more than B. Zhang proved the result with B = 70,000,000, while the original conjecture corresponds to B = 2, so the race was on to reduce the gap.

In November, recent Oxford PhD James Maynard, now working at the University of Montreal under the supervision of CICMA member Andrew Granville, announced that he had dramatically slashed this bound to 600, by a substantially easier method. Maynard is in good company: Terry Tao (UCLA), a recipient of the most presitigious prize in mathematics, the Fields Medal, had independently developed the same idea. Both were able to extend their proofs to show a much stronger result: given a number m, there corresponds a bound B such that there are infinitely many intervals (stretches of consecutive integers) of length B containing at least m distinct primes. If the ideas of Zhang, Maynard and Tao are pushed to their limit one could conceivably arrive at a bound (for 2 primes) as low as B = 12, close but not quite enough for the Twin Primes Conjecture.

More information can be found at:

Source: Centre de recherches mathématiques

Christiane Rousseau winner of Abel-Gauthier Prize

Posted Monday, November 4, 2013

On the occasion of the closing ceremony of the AMQ Conference held last October 12, several prizes were awarded.

The 2013 Abel-Gauthier prize, designating the personality of the year, was awarded to Christiane Rousseau, professor at Université de Montréal, in recognition of:

  • her co-initiative with Edward Bierstone to declare 2013 the International Year Mathematics of Planet Earth, and her relentless efforts that led to the participation of about one hundred scientific societies, universities and research centres in this initiative;
  • her success in distributing the Spring edition of Accromath to 14 countries in francophone Africa;
  • her unflagging involvement in AMQ activities and the Bulletin AMQ, always with grace and wisdom;
  • her smiling attitude, attentiveness, intelligent approach and integrity.

Numéro conjoint du Bulletin AMQ sur le thème MPT2013

Posted Monday, June 17, 2013

The special joint AMQ-ISM publication of the Bulletin de l'AMQ for the theme year MPT2013 is now available on line at the following address: http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/amq/BullNumeros.html.

2013 Carl Herz Prize winner

Posted Wednesday, May 8, 2013

We are pleased to inform you that Dr. Mohammad Najafi Ivaki, from Concordia University, is the 2013 recipient of the Carl Herz Prize.

A graduate of Tarbiat Modares University in Iran, Dr. Ivaki came to Concordia University in 2009 to do a PhD under the supervision of Alina Stancu. His research interests include geometric flows, convex geometry, differential geometry and PDE's. He successfully defended his thesis on "Centro-affine normal flows and their applications" in December 2012.

A very promising young researcher, Dr. Ivaki has already published four articles, three of which as a sole author, in highly respected journals. He was also invited to present his results at the CRM workshop on Convexity and Asymptotic Geometric Analysis held in April 2012.

He has been awarded the Carl Herz Prize for his paper entitled "Centro-affine curvature flows on centrally symmetric convex curves" to appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.

Dr. Ivaki will present his work at the 16th Colloque pan-québécois des étudiants de l'ISM, to be held on the McGill campus, May 17-19. In September 2013, he will start a research postdoctoral position at Technische Universität Wien (Austria).

The Carl Herz Prize recognizes a research contribution made by a doctoral student registered at one of the ISM universities whose supervisor is a member of an ISM scientific group. The $4,000 cash prize is accompanied by a $1,000 travel grant, allowing the recipient to present his or her research at a meeting. This year's Selection Committee consisted of Galia Dafni (Concordia University), Franco Saliola (UQAM), David Stephens (McGill University), and Luc Vinet (Université de Montréal).

2013 ISM Undergraduate Research Scholars

Posted Sunday, April 28, 2013

The winners of the 2013 ISM Undergraduate Research Scholarships are:

  • Alex De Serre (Bishop's University)
  • Nicholas Galbraith (McGill University)
  • Olivier Gingras (Université de Montréal)
  • Samuel Laferrière (McGill University)
  • Thomas Ng (McGill University)
  • Manuela Piñeros-Rodriguez (Université de Montréal)
  • William Wright (McGill University)
  • Dongliang Zhang (McGill University)

Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013

Posted Friday, December 7, 2012

The official Canadian launching of the world-wide initiative "Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013" took place at the Canadian Mathematical Society's meeting held in Montreal, December 7-10, 2012.

To mark this important event, the ISM, in partnership with the CMS, organized a series of presentations on the theme for cegep teachers.

The scientific programme was elaborated by Christiane Rousseau and Christian Genest. The speakers have kindly accepted to make there slides available to the general public.

The proceedings of this meeting have been published in the Bulletin AMQ in collaboration with ISM.