Mathematics Excellence

Mathematician Don Zagier, Emeritus Scientific Member and Director, Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, and holder of ICTP's Ramanujan International Chair, has been awarded the Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award 2021. He shares the prize with Benedict Gross, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, for their formulation and proof of the Gross-Zagier formula.

The formula is used to verify that certain solutions to equations known as elliptic curves generate infinitely many other solutions.

The Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award also recognises Zagier's work on modular forms and special functions which resolve questions and problems in diverse areas ranging from topology and moduli spaces to geometry and mathematical physics.

The award was jointly founded in 2015 by Fudan University and Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, in recognition of scientists who have made fundamental and groundbreaking achievements in physics, mathematics, and biomedicine. Among the past winners are Ingrid Daubechies, a former member of ICTP's Scientific Council, and ICTP Dirac Medallists Charles L. Kane and Sir Michael Berry.

In addition to his ICTP affiliation, Zagier is a distinguished affiliated member of the Trieste-based Institute for Geometry and Physics, run jointly by ICTP and SISSA.

Related links:

Salam Distinguished Lecture Series 2015: Don Zagier