Morningside Award
The Morningside Medal of Mathematics is awarded to outstanding mathematicians of Chinese descent of age under 45 to encourage them in their pursuit of mathematical truth. Up to six medals, two gold and four silver, are awarded every three years at the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians. The 2001 Morningside Medals also carry a cash award of US$50,000 for the Morningside Lifetime Achievement Award in Mathematics; US$25,000 for each of the gold medalists; and US$10,000 for each of the silver medalists. A committee of internationally renowned mathematicians, chaired by Professor Shing-Tung Yau, selects the medalists.
The first medals were awarded on December 12, 1998 at the First International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM 1998), at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in
In addition to the name of the medalist, each gold and silver medal has the image of a Mobius band and a fundamental domain. They were chosen not only for the simplicity of their image, but also because of their significant contributions to the development of mathematics in the 20th century.
The Mobius band (also known as the Mobius strip) was discovered in 1858 by the German mathematician and astronomer August Ferdinand Mobius. This curious one-sided surface does not have any orientation, yet has a distinct topographical character. It was one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, which has profoundly influenced modern physics, classical physics as well as modern mathematics, including geometry.
A fundamental domain is related to the concept of a group, which can be used to express symmetry in mathematics. During the late 19th century, infinite discrete group was studied but only until the 20th century, did it become a main subject area in mathematics. This field of study is not only important in geometry but also in number theory. Practically all the famous developments in modern number theory are related to concepts of fundamental domain and discrete group.
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| 1998
Recipients |
2001 Recipients |
1998
Gold Medalists
Chang-Shou Lin
Professor Lin was awarded the 1998 Morningside Gold Medal for his research work on locating isometric embedding problems, scalar curvature equations and semi-linear elliptic equations. Currently, Professor Lin is a Professor of Mathematics at the
Shouwu Zhang
Professor Zhang was awarded the 1998 Morningside Gold Medal for his contributions to number theory and arithmetical algebraic geometry. His achievements include the connexions between L-functions and arithmetic via the Gross-Zagier formula, the Galois distribution of points on abelian varieties, and pure Arakelov geometry. Currently, Professor Zhang is a Professor of Mathematics at
Silver Medalists
Raymond Chan
Professor Chan was awarded the 1998 Morningside Silver Medal for his work in computational mathematics. Currently, Professor Chan is a Professor of Mathematics at the
Chong-Qing Cheng
Professor Cheng was awarded the 1998 Morningside Silver Medal for his contributions in the areas of dynamical systems and Hamiltonian dynamics. He is recognized for his work on problems related to Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) theory. Currently, Professor Cheng is a Professor of Mathematics at
Kefeng Liu
Professor Liu was awarded the 1998 Morningside Silver Medal for his achievements in topology, geometry, and mathematical physics. Currently, Professor Liu is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the
Tong Yang
Professor Yang was awarded the 1998 Morningside Silver Medal for his contributions to the fundamental well-posedness problem for general systems of hyperbolic conservation laws. Currently, Professor Yang is a Professor of Mathematics at the City University of Hong Kong. He received a Ph.D from the
2001
Gold Medalists
Jun Li
Professor Li is awarded the 2001 Morningside Gold Medal for his fundamental contributions to the study of moduli spaces of vector bundles and to the theory of stable maps and basic invariants of Calabi-Yau manifolds. Currently, he is a Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University. Professor Li received both a B.S. (1982) and M.A. (1984) from Fudan University, an M.A. at the University of California, San Diego (1987), and a Ph.D from Harvard University (1989), all in mathematics. In 1994, Professor Li was named a Terman Fellow at Stanford and received an Alfred Sloan Fellowship.
Horng-Tzer Yau
Professor Yau is awarded the 2001 Morningside Gold Medal for his profound contributions to mathematical physics. His achievements are products of his unusual ability to bring physical insights to bear on mathematical problems. Currently, Professor Yau is a Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He received a B.S. in mathematics at National Taiwan University (1981) and a Ph.D. in mathematical physics at Princeton University (1987). His honors include fellowships from the Alfred Sloan Foundation (1991) and the Packard Foundation (1991). He was also named a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.
Silver Medalists
Daqing Wan
Professor Wan is awarded the 2001 Morningside Silver Medal for his proof of Dwork's conjecture on L-functions over finite fields. Currently, he is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. Professor Wan received a B.S. from the Chengdu Institute of Geology (1982), an M.S. at Sichuan University (1986), and a Ph.D from the University of Washington, Seattle (1991). His research interests include number theory, arithmetic geometry, finite fields, and p-Adic analysis.
Chin-Lung Wang
Professor Wang is awarded the 2001 Morningside Silver Medal for his contributions on the birational model of algebraic varieties with singularities. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at National Tsing Hua University. Professor Wang received a B.A. from National Taiwan University (1990) and a Ph.D. from Harvard University (1998). His research interests include algebraic geometry, Hodge theory and differential geometry.
Sijue Wu
Professor Wu is awarded the 2001 Morningside Silver Medal for her establishment of local well-posedness of the water wave problems in a Sobolev class in arbitrary space dimensions. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received both a B.S. (1983) and an M.S. (1986) from Peking University and a Ph.D from Yale University (1990). In 2001, Professor Wu was awarded the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics from the American Mathematical Society.
Nanhua Xi
Professor Xi is awarded the 2001 Morningside Silver Medal for his work on solving an important conjecture of Lusztig. Currently, he is a Professor at the Institute of Mathematics at the chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Xi received a B.S. from the Huaihua Institute (1981) and both an M.S. (1985) and a Ph.D (1988) from East China Normal University. In 1995, he was the recipient of the First Award of the Young Scientist Prize from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
