Stories of success at ICTP

Professor Philibert Nang, ICTP associate and head of the Research Laboratory of Mathematics in Libreville (Gabon), has been awarded the prestigious AMMSI-Phillip Griffiths Prize 2017 from the African Mathematics Millennium Science Initiative (AMMSI).

Established in 2016, the AMMSI-Phillip Griffiths Prize is given to an African mathematician living in Africa for his/her outstanding contribution to mathematics and its applications or to the promotion of it. The 2017 award has been won by Professor Nang for the “impact of his work on a wide range of areas of mathematics, as well as for his notable contributions to mathematical development in his home country of Gabon.”

Professor Philibert Nang is an internationally recognized scholar based in Gabon, where he plays an important role for the local mathematical community. He is a specialist in Algebraic Analysis, a field incorporating several important branches of mathematics like Partial Differential Equations, Algebraic Geometry, Representation Theory and Singularity Theory. Beyond being a full professor at the École Normale Supérieure of Libreville, he currently serves as president of the Gabon Mathematical Society. He obtained a PhD in mathematics at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris in 1996, and has been a visiting member at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn (Germany) and at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai (India).

Professor Nang has attended many ICTP workshops, and he is a Regular Associate in the Centre's Associate Scheme, which provides sabbatical opportunities at its Trieste campus for scientists from developing countries. In 2011, while conducting his research in Gabon, he was the first African to win the Ramanujan Prize, awarded jointly by ICTP, the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, and the International Mathematical Union to young mathematicians from developing countries.

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The AMMSI-Phillip Griffiths Prize, consisting of a certificate and a cash prize of USD 6000, has been made possible thank to a grant donated by Professor Phillip Griffiths to AMMSI, after he was awarded the prestigious Chern Medal by the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in 2014.