NEWS AT THE CRM

A Breakthrough Prize is awarded to Gilles Brassard

The 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is awarded to Gilles Brassard (Université de Montreal), his colleague Charles H. Bennett (IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center), as well as David Deutsch (Oxford University) and Peter W. Shor (MIT), for their foundational work in the field of quantum information.

Gilles Brassard is a longstanding member of the CRM.

For more information see udemnouvelles and the 2023 Breakthrough Prizes announcement.

The 2022 André Aisenstadt Prize is awarded to Yevgeny Liokumovich

The 2022 André Aisenstadt Prize is awarded to Yevgeny Liokumovich (University of Toronto) for his numerous and fundamental contributions to geometric analysis, in particular his proof with F. Marques and A. Neves of a famous conjecture due to Gromov providing an appropriate Weyl Law for the volume spectrum of general Riemannian manifolds.

Professor Liokumovich obtained his PhD in 2015 at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Alex Nabutovsky and Regina Rotman. After several postdoctoral fellowships at top institutions in his area — Imperial College of London, MIT and IAS, he returned to a tenure-track Assistant Professorship at the University of Toronto in 2019. His research interests are centered in geometric analysis. Professor Liokumovich was one of the two 2020 Nirenberg lecturers in geometric analysis at the CRM, and he was awarded a Sloan Fellowship in 2021

 Yevgeny Liokumovich will give the André Aisenstadt Prize lecture on October 14 at the CRM.

A celebration of analytic number theory, a conference in honor of Andrew Granville

From September 5 to 9, the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) will be home to a major international conference in analytic number theory. The conference is taking place in honor of the 60th birthday of Professor Andrew Granville whose 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 joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the Université de Montréal in 2002 as a senior Canada Research Chair. His presence has had a galvanizing effect on the Montreal mathematics community. The list of graduate students and postdocs he has trained, which includes several prominent female mathematicians, reads like a who’s who amongst the younger generation of stellar analytic number theorists. Notably, James Maynard, who was a CRM-ISM postdoc in 2013-14 supervised by Prof. Granville, received the Fields medal in July 2022 for his contributions to analytic number theory. The Fields medal is considered the highest honor in mathematics, equivalent to the Nobel prize in sciences.

In order to pay homage to Prof. Granville’s contributions to mathematics, many of his trainees and several other leading analytic number theorists are coming to CRM to attend his 60th birthday conference. The list of speakers includes three recipients of the Fields medal: Manjul Bhargava (Princeton), James Maynard (Oxford), Terrence Tao (UCLA). In addition to them, there will be talks by many other senior mathematicians of the highest calibre, such as John Friedlander (Toronto), Ken Ono (U Virginia), Carl Pomerance (Dartmouth), Zeev Rudnick (Tel Aviv), Kannan Soundararajan (Stanford) and Tamar Ziegler (Jerusalem), and by young stars such as Adam Harper (Warwick), Sarah Peluse (Princeton/IAS) and Joni Teräväinen (Turku).

The conference is organized by Chantal David (Concordia), Dimitris Koukoulopoulos (UdeM), Matilde Lalín (UdeM), James Maynard, Ken Ono and Kannan Soundararajan. More information about it can be found on its website.

Parallelly to the conference in honor of Prof. Granville, the CRM is organizing a special lecture for the general public by the recent Fields medalist James Maynard, where he will speak about The Magic of Prime Numbers (7:30pm, Thursday September 8).

Prof. Granville’s brief bio: He received his PhD from Queens University in 1987. From 1991 to 2002, he was a professor at the University of Georgia. He joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the Université de Montréal in 2002 as a senior Canada Research Chair. In addition, he spent a few but eventful years at University College London, where he served as Department Chair.

His 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. He has more than 160 published papers under his belt, 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.

 His research has been recognized internationally: he was an invited speaker in the 1994 International Congress of Mathematicians, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the American Mathematical Society, a member of Academia Europea, and in 2021 he won the CRM-Fields-PIMS prize, the top Canadian research prize in mathematics.

Jacques Hurtubise Receives the 2022 David Borwein Award

Congratulations to Jacques Hurtubise (member of CIRGET and the Laboratory of mathematical physics of the CRM) who has been named by the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) as 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 upcoming CMS Winter meeting in Toronto (December 2-5, 2022).
The CMS media release.

Former CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellow James Maynard awarded the Fields Medal

See the news in our new website.

The CRM is recruiting!

We are looking for an office and administration technician to complete our scientific activities team. 
The person we are looking for has strong office and communication skills, and has experience in event organization.

 The main tasks are the following: 

 Your strengths: 

  What you need to succeed in this role: 

Are you interested in joining our team?
Send your resume with a cover letter to benoit.durand-jodoin@umontreal.ca

Thematic Semester Symmetries: Algebras and Physics

This semester, in hybrid mode, will consist in six 1-month concentration periods devoted to ongoing research in cutting edge topics; each will involve 1- or 2-week workshops that will be preceded by several preparatory mini-courses.

• Non-commutative algebras, representation theory and special functions
May 23-June 10, 2022

• Graph Theory, Algebraic Combinatorics and Mathematical Physics
July 25 - August 19, 2022

• Conformal field theory and quantum many-body physics
August 21 - September 9, 2022

• Integrable systems, exactly solvable models and algebras
September 12-october 7, 2022

• Quantum symmetries: Tensor categories, Topological quantum field theories, Vertex algebras
October 10 - November 4, 2022

• Tensors: Quantum Information, Complexity and Combinatorics
November 7-December 2, 2022

FRQ support for the CRM CNRS partnership – call for applications

The Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) receives support from the FRQNT within the framework of the agreement establishing the CRM as an IRL of the CNRS. This support allows the CRM to offer its scientific members and students the possibility of short or medium-term stays in France. Three possibilities are offered:

• Research internships for students up to 6 months in France (see details in the attached document STAGES-QC-FRA-2022).

• Research stays of up to 6 months in a French laboratory for CRM members(see details in the attached document SEJOURS-QC-FRA-2022).

• Short stays to participate in scientific events in France for CRM members, postdoctoral fellows and students (see details in the attached document PARTICIPATION-QC-FRA-2022).

In addition, following the recent renewal of the FRQ funding under new conditions, we are also accepting applications and nominations for visits by French researchers to the CRM, in support of the CRM’s scientific activities. Such a request will consist of:

  - a letter of intent with a description of the activity and a budget proposal
  - a letter of nomination from a CRM member (or the email address of a CRM member who could serve as a reference);
  - a CV with a list of publications.

Proposals and applications should be sent to crmfrance@crm.umontreal.ca.

FRQNT renews its support to the CRM

The CRM is pleased to announce the renewal of one of its principal infrastructure grants. The CRM has been awarded a grant of $500,000 per year by the FRQNT for the next six years, the maximum grant allowed in the Strategic Clusters program.

David A. Stephens awarded the SSC Gold Medal

The CRM congratulates David A. Stephens (member of the CRM and its StatLab) on being awarded the 2022 Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada. The SSC Gold Medal is awarded to an active researcher who has made outstanding contributions to statistics or probability, either to mathematical developments or in applied work.
For more information

Québec Government extends En Avant Math !

In its March 2022 budget, the Government of Quebec allocated $1.5 million in 2022-2023 to enable the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations (CIRANO) to continue their work in the « En avant Math ! » partnership.

For the past three years, the CRM and CIRANO have been working together to establish a strategy to foster the development of a highly qualified workforce in applied mathematics for leading-edge fields. In this second phase of the partnership, projects will be proposed to further investigate various research themes, including workforce availability and retention in STEM fields and labor market integration of more at-risk populations particularly in STEM fields.

CRM-SSC prize 2022

Congratulations to Pengfei Li (University of Waterloo) who will receive the CRM-SSC prize in statistics for ground-breaking and pioneering research contributions to the EM-test for the order of finite mixture models; for original and creative methodological developments in the areas of the empirical likelihood, density ratio models, statistical genetics, non-probability sampling; for exceptional research productivity; and excellence in statistical education.

For more information

Twelfth Montreal Industrial Problem Solving Workshop 2022

The Twelfth Montreal Industrial Problem Solving Workshop (IPSW) will take place "in person" (i.e., not virtually) from August 22 to August 26, 2022. It is being organized by the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO).

For more information

UNESCO publishes Mathematics for Action to coincide with International Mathematics Day

Published on March 14 to mark International Mathematics Day,Mathematics for Action: Supporting Science-Based Decision Making is a series of policy briefs produced by UNESCO, the Centre de recherches mathématiques, the International Mathematical Union, the International Science Council and their partners. With help from the CRM, Christiane Rousseau spearheaded the toolkit project, which was produced by a consortium of 14 organizations.

For more information

Joint CRM-ISM initiative in support of mathematicians in distress

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.

For more information :

SMS 2024 - Call for proposals

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.

Séminaire de Mathématiques Supérieures 2022: Floer Homotopy Theory

For more information

CRM Research grant for ISM courses given online

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 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize is awarded to Bálint Virág

We are pleased to announce that the 2022 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize is awarded to Bálint Virág, of the University of Toronto. The price is awarded for his exceptional contributions to mathematical research, in the area of probability.

Virág earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in 2000, after which he was a Moore Instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before going to the University of Toronto in 2003 as a Canada Research Chair. He has been awarded the Rollo Davidson Prize in Probability, the Coxeter-James Prize in 2010 and the John L. Synge Award from the Royal Society of Canada in 2014. Virág was a speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2014. Virág's research spans a wide range of areas of probability, including random matrix theory, Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality, and random sorting networks. Virág has an outstanding record of training students and postdoctoral fellows. Many of them have been gone on to become leaders in probability in their own right.

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 Montreal, the Fields Institute in Toronto, and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) in Vancouver.