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 Awards

Index



Faculty and students on the UBC Mathematics Department have received a number of awards and honours.

2013 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Neil Balmforth has been awarded the 2013 CAIMS Research Prize.
    From the citation:

    "CAIMS is pleased to announce that the 2013 CAIMS*SCMAI Research prize has been awarded to Prof. Neil Balmforth, University of British Columbia.

    Prof. Balmforth's research has focused on the modeling and analysis of problems in classical fluid mechanics, complex geophysical flows, and viscoplastic flows. His work combines asymptotic analysis, dynamical systems theory, and stability theory together with a keen physical insight into modeling issues associated with complex fluids. Notable contributions include the modeling and analysis of Non-Newtonian lava flows, the study of solitary waves in thin film models, the analysis of the spectrum associated with shear-flows, vortices, and critical layers, and shallow water flows. His work is theoretical, yet is influenced strongly by laboratory experiments in fluids."

  • Rachel Kuske has been selected by the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) as one of ten recipients of their inaugural AWM Service Award. The AWM was founded in 1971 and now has over 3,000 student, individual and institutional members. The AWM Service Award recognizes individuals for helping to promote and support women in mathematics through exceptional voluntary service to the Association for Women in Mathematics.


2012 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Alejandro Adem, Martin Barlow, David Boyd, Jim Carrell, Bill Casselman, Ailana Fraser, Nassif Ghoussoub, Izabella Laba, Zinovy Reichstein, Maurice Sion and Gordon Slade were announced as Inaugural Fellows of the American Mathematical Society.
    See http://www.ams.org/profession/ams-fellows/ams-fellows

  • Jim Bryan has been awarded a NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement in the most recent round. This highly competitive award provides substantial and timely resources to outstanding researchers who have a well-established research program and who are at a key point in their careers at which they can make, or capitalize on, a significant breakthrough.

    More information about the prize is available at :
    http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/Grants-Subs/DGAS-SGSA_eng.asp

  • Jessica Conway has won a Faculty of Science Postdoctoral Travel Award.

  • Ailana Fraser has been awarded the Canadian Math Society's 2012 Krieger-Nelson Prize. The prize was inaugurated in 1995 to recognize female mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research.

    Information about the Kriege-Nelson Prize: http://cms.math.ca/Prizes/info/kn.html

  • Dragos Ghioca has been named the winner of the 2012 Ribenboim Prize. This prize is awarded every two years by the Canadian Number Theory Association for distinguished research in Number Theory. See http://www.cs.uleth.ca/%7Ecnta2012/CNTA12-RibenboimAnnounce.html

  • Nassif Ghoussoub has been awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal to "honour [his] significant contributions and achievements". See http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=14019&lan=eng

  • Fok-Shuen Leung was a recipient of a 2011-12 Killam teaching prize, recognizing outstanding contributions made by teaching faculty. See http://vpacademic.ubc.ca/killam-teaching-prizes/killam-teaching-prize-award-winners/20112012-2/

  • Mark MacLean is the recipient of the 2012 PIMS Education Prize.

    This prize, awarded by the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, recognizes individuals who have played a major role in encouraging activities which have enhanced public awareness and appreciation of mathematics, as well as those who foster communication among various groups concerned with mathematical education at all levels.

    Mark MacLean is an outstanding instructor making a major impact on teaching in Mathematics at UBC and beyond. He was one of the original members of the UBC Science One (first year Science) programme and has contributed greatly to its success, with a personal dedication to enhancing the learning environment. In addition to his excellent teaching, MacLean has taken leadership roles in course development, instructor supervision, tutorial centre management, and TA training. He has also chaired UBC committees on Scholarships and Teaching Awards. His energetic outreach activities include leadership in the Euclid Contest and teacher professional development in the area of Aboriginal Education, in collaboration with PIMS. These activities support high school teachers and students throughout the greater Vancouver area and beyond. Together with Veselin Jungic at SFU (previous PIMS Education Prize winner), Mark has developed highly successful curricular material for children (including videos and texts) in the context of Aboriginal culture.

    The 2012 PIMS Education Prize will be awarded during the annual Changing the Culture conference at Simon Fraser University on May 18, 2012.

  • Young-Heon Kim has been awarded a 2012 Sloan Research Fellowship. These prestigious two year fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. The awards recognize distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

    More information is available at http://www.sloan.org/fellowships/page/21

Teaching awards:

  • The Department Teaching Awards were awarded to one postdoctoral fellow, Deniz Karli, and to three graduate students, Rebecca Hiller, Ed Kroc and Ali Vakil. These awards recognize outstanding teaching performances from our postdoctoral fellows and graduate students.

Student awards:

2011 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Ian Frigaard has been elected President of the CAIMS*SCAIM(Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society) Board. Ian's term will be 2011-2013.

  • Ian Frigaard has been awarded the 2011 CAIMS/MITACS Industrial Mathematics Prize. This award recognizes exceptional research, conducted primarily in Canada, in any branch of industrial mathematics.

    The citation recognizes Ian's distinguished contributions to the theory of dynamics of non-Newtonian fluids as well as industrial applications using mathematical modelling for oil well construction. His research is recognized as inspired by industrial problems and also contributing to support industry progress while frequently conducted in collaboration with industrial partners. The full citation is available at:
    http://www.mitacs.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1785%3Acongratulations-to-dr-ian-frigaard-of-ubc&catid=50%3Aarticle&Itemid=124&lang=en

    More information about the prize is available at : http://www.caims.ca/Awards/Iprize.html

  • Young-Heon Kim has been awarded the 2012 André-Aisenstadt Prize from CRM, shared with Marco Gualtieri (Toronto). The André-Aisenstadt Mathematics Prize is awarded to recognize talented young Canadian mathematicians.

    The prize committee "was impressed and excited about both files and decided to award the prize to .. both."

    More information about this prize can be found at http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prixAndreAisenstadt/prix_AA_an.shtml

  • Gordon Slade has been elected to Fellowship in the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

    Fellowship in the IMS honors the outstanding research and professional contributions of its members, recognizing distinction in probability or statistics research and leadership.

    More information on IMS Fellows can be found at:
    http://www.imstat.org/awards/honored_fellows.htm

  • Juan Souto and Ozgur Yilmaz have been awarded a NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplements in the the most recent round. These highly competitive awards provide substantial and timely resources to outstanding researchers who have a well-established research program and who are at a key point in their careers at which they can make, or capitalize on, a significant breakthrough.

    More information about the prize is available at :
    http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/Grants-Subs/DGAS-SGSA_eng.asp

  • Michael Ward has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 CAIMS Research Prize. This award recognizes innovative and exceptional research contributions in an emerging area of applied or industrial mathematics.

    The citation recognizes Michael's significant successful combination of singular perturbation techniques and numerical methods to analyze boundary-value problems arising in a wide range of applied fields. He will give the prize lecture at the CAIMS*SCMAI Annual Meeting, which this year is part of the ICIAM meeting in Vancouver.

    More information about the prize is available at : http://www.caims.ca/Awards/Rprize.html

Teaching awards:

  • Malabika Pramanik has been awarded a 2010-11 UBC Killam Teaching Prize. These prizes recognize outstanding achievement as a teacher, reflecting enthusiasm for teaching and commitment to students.

    This is the sixth UBC Killam Teaching Prize awarded in Math over the last five years.

Student awards:

  • David Steinberg is the recipient of 2010-11 Faculty of Science Achievement Awards for students. As noted in the message from the Dean, these awards recognize exceptional service contributions of faculty, staff, and students.

    David was cited for

    ... leadership in TA training in the Mathematics Department, and playing a key role in setting up the Mathematics Department's TA Accreditation Program (TAAP).

  • The following students were awarded a NSERC/SSHRC graduate fellowships for 2011-12.

    PGSM fellowship: Matthew Coles

    CGSM fellowships: Jonathan Blackman, Meghan Dutot, Jeremy Hoskins, Adrian Keet, Brett Kolesnik, Laura Liao, Justin Martel, Oren Rippel, Pamela Sargent

    PGSD fellowship: Rory Wilson

    CGSD fellowships: Kyle Hambrook, Alexander Tomberg

    Vanier fellowship: Iain Moyles

    SSHRC fellowship: Alexander Jakobsen

Service awards:

  • Verni Brown is the recipient of 2010-11 Faculty of Science Achievement Awards for staff. As noted in the message from the Dean, these awards recognize exceptional service contributions of faculty, staff, and students.

    Verni was cited for

    ... exceptional service, organization, and contributions as Undergraduate Secretary in the UBC Math Department. Her management of this large program provides superior support of our undergrads and teaching mission.

2010 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Omer Angel has been awarded a NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement in the most recent round. These highly competitive awards provide substantial and timely resources to outstanding researchers who have a well-established research program and who are at a key point in their careers at which they can make, or capitalize on, a significant breakthrough.

    More information about the program is available at:
    http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/Grants-Subs/DGAS-SGSA_eng.asp

    This is the seventh DAS awarded to a UBC Math faculty member in the last four years.

  • Omer Angel has been awarded a 2010 Sloan Research Fellowship. These prestigious two year fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. The awards recognize distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

    More information is available at: http://www.sloan.org/pressroom/item/458/2010-sloan-research-fellowships and more on UBC awardees at: http://science.ubc.ca/news/355

  • The following students were awarded a NSERC graduate/postdoctoral fellowships for next year.

    PGS fellowships:
    Farzin Barekat, Shane Cernele, Cameron Christou, Eric DeGiuli, Matthew Folz, Tyler Helmuth, Jennifer Morrison, Oren Rippel, Rhoda Sollazzo
    PDF fellowships:
    Jun Allard, Adam Clay, Craig Cowan, Aurel Meyer, Terry Soo

  • Kai Behrend has been awarded the Canadian Math Society's 2011 Jeffery-William Prize for Research Excellence. The prize was inaugurated in 1968 to recognize established mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research.

    The citation notes that Kai is one of the world's leading experts in the theory of algebraic stacks and the geometry of moduli spaces of stable maps, and that today nearly every paper in Gromov-Witten theory, which is a mathematical incarnation of string theory, relies on his work in some way.

    This is the fifth time in the last decade that a UBC Math Faculty member has won this award.

    Information on the prize is available at: http://cms.math.ca/Prizes/info/jw.html
    The complete citation is available at: http://cms.math.ca/MediaReleases/2010/jw-announcement

  • Daniel Coombs has been selected as the recipient of 2010 CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award in Applied Mathematics. This award recognizes exceptional research in any branch of applied mathematics where the recipient is less than ten years past the date of Ph.D. at the time of nomination.

    Dan is cited for his creativity, productivity, and ever-growing impact in mathematics applied to problems in biology. He works in the field of computational immunology, addressing a wide range of problems in viral disease dynamics and HIV modelling, and in the dynamics of receptors on cell surfaces.

    Additional information about the award is available at: http://www.pims.math.ca/news/caimspims-early-career-award-applied-mathematics

  • Jimmy Feng has been awarded a UBC Killam Faculty Research Fellowship. This award recognizes special distinction of intellect in promising faculty members as they devote full time to research during a study leave.

  • Ailana Fraser has been awarded a NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement in the most recent round. These highly competitive awards provide substantial and timely resources to outstanding researchers who have a well-established research program and who are at a key point in their careers at which they can make, or capitalize on, a significant breakthrough.

    More information about the program is available at:
    http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/Grants-Subs/DGAS-SGSA_eng.asp

    This is the eighth DAS awarded to a UBC Math faculty member in the last four years.

  • Nassif Ghoussoub has been awarded the 2010 CMS Borwein Career Award. This award recognizes individuals who have made exceptional, broad, and continued contributions to Canadian mathematics. In this case, revolutionizing Canadian mathematics and its world status is among Nassif's many achievements.

    More about the award can be found at http://www.math.ca/Prizes/info/db.html

  • Congratuations to Bud Homsy on his honorary doctorate awarded by University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. This award included the citation for his research and educational activities in the field of fluid mechanics, including multiphase flows, non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, hydrodynamic stability, and for spearheading the production of "Multimedia Fluid Mechanics".

    More information and photos are available at:
    http://www.ups-tlse.fr/1277818244144/0/fiche___actualite/

  • David Kohler has been selected as the recipient of the 2009/10 UBC Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Award. This award recognizes a select group of graduate students who have made outstanding contributions to teaching and learning at UBC. The citation from the Office of the Vice Provost and AVP Academic Affairs, noted that there are 2000 TAs at UBC, so winning this award is a remarkable achievement.

  • Rachel Kuske has been awarded the Canadian Math Society's 2011 Krieger-Nelson Prize for Research Excellence. The prize was inaugurated in 1995 to recognize female mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research.

    The citation notes that Rachel has made important contributions to the study of ordinary, stochastic, and partial differential equation models for a wide range of applications including neuroscience, mathematical biology, buckling under compression, mathematical finance, and hydraulic-fracture mechanics.

    Rachel has also been involved in industrial mathematics, and has continually been mindful of mentorship of young scientists, including other women mathematicians. She is currently serving as Head of the Department of Mathematics, to the appreciation and benefit of her colleagues.

    This is the fourth time in the last decade that a UBC Math Faculty member has won a Kreiger-Nelson award.

    Information about the Kriege-Nelson Prize: http://cms.math.ca/Prizes/info/kn.html
    Media release: http://cms.math.ca/MediaReleases/2010/kn-announcement

  • Mar Ness, Warren Code and Rajiv Gupta have won the 2009/2010 Faculty of Science Achievement awards in the areas of staff, students, and faculty, respectively.

    These awards recognize exceptional service contributions of faculty, staff, and students. They will be presented at a special ceremony at the Faculty of Science Meeting on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, at St. John's College - usually around 3:30-4:00. Please mark your calendars for this, so we can all join to celebrate our colleagues' achievements.

    The individual citations for Mar, Warren, and Rajiv are:

    Mar Ness:
    Heroic efforts in not only administering but also optimizing the major responsibilities of classroom assignment, timetabling, and exam administration, together with unparalleled assistance in registration and first year advising. All these jobs are done with great personal commitment and care in support of Math students and instructors.
    Warren Code:
    For scientific leadership and community-building service among the students and faculty of the Mathematics Department.
    Rajiv Gupta:
    Extraordinary service in transforming the Undergraduate Chair position to include valuable training, tracking, and advising contributions well beyond the usual job description. Remarkable resource for staff, students, and instructors at all levels to support teaching the department.

  • Brian Wetton has been selected as the recipient of the 2010 CAIMS/MITACS Industrial Mathematics Prize. This award recognizes exceptional research, conducted primarily in Canada, in any branch of industrial mathematics.

    The citation recognizes Brian's contributions particularly in the area of fuel cells, noting that he refocused his research in industrial mathematics with direct applicability of advanced mathematics to real world problems. Brian is also recognized for a distinguished record of mentoring and supervision, as evidenced by his management of a research team of industrial and academic partners and the successful careers of his students.

    More information about the prize is available at : http://www.caims.ca/Awards/Iprize.html

  • Benjamin Young is the recipient of the 2010 Doctoral Prize (http://cms.math.ca/Prizes/info/dp/). The CMS Doctoral Prize recognizes outstanding performance by a doctoral student. Young received his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of British Columbia, working under the joint supervision of Jim Bryan and Richard Kenyon.

Teaching awards:

Student awards:

  • Oren Rippel, an outstanding Combined Honours Math and Physics student, who has been awarded a Wesbrook Scholarship.
    The Wesbrook Scholarship recognizes demonstrated excellence in academics and service, encouraging students who balance high academic achievement with outstanding contributions to society through a range of extracurricular activities. Information about the scholarships is available at: http://www.students.ubc.ca/finance/awards.cfm?page=scholarships&view=premier

2009 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Omer Angel has been award the 2009-2010 Andre-Aisenstadt Prize.

    This award recognizes outstanding research achievement by a young Canadian mathematician in pure or applied mathematics.
    http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prixAndreAisenstadt/prix_AA_an.shtml

    From the citation: "He works in probability theory, on percolation, random walks and random spatial processes of all sorts, with applications to other areas of mathematics, physics and even biology. He has many impressive results..."
    The full citation can be found at: http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/en/index.shtml

  • Martin Barlow has been award the 2009 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize, intended to be the premier mathematics prize in Canada.

    Martin is a leading figure in probability and the leading international expert in diffusion on fractals and other disordered media. In addition, the impact of his work has been important in such diverse fields as partial differential equations, including major progress on the De Giorgi conjecture, stochastic differential equations, the mathematical finance of electricity pricing, filtration enlargement and branching measure diffusions.

    More information about the prize and Martin's work is detailed in their CMS Email announcement.

  • Martin Barlow, Michael Doebeli and Leah Keshet have been appointed as Distinguished Scholars in Residence for 2009 at UBC's Peter Wall Institute for Advance Study. The Distinguished Scholars in Residence program, targeted at senior Associate and Full Professors, was developed to bring to the Institute outstanding, UBC faculty members with distinguished research records and commitment to interdisciplinarity.

    More information on the PWIAS Distinguished Scholars in Residence program can be found at: http://www.pwias.ubc.ca/programs/sir.php

  • Patrick Brosnan has been awarded the 2009 Coxeter-James prize for research by the Canadian Mathematical Society for his outstanding contributions to mathematical research. The full citation can be found at http://www.cms.math.ca/MediaReleases/2009/res-prizes
  • David Brydges and Zinovy Reichstein have both accepted invitations to speak at the next International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010 in Hyderabad, India. This is an extremely prestigious honour -- only a handful of mathematicians receive these invitation are invited. The ICM meets only once every four years.
  • Jimmy Feng, Kalle Karu and Nike Vatsal were all awarded a NSERC Discovery Accelerator Awards. These highly competitive awards provide substantial and timely resources to outstanding researchers who have a well-established research program and who are at a key point in their careers at which they can make, or capitalize on, a significant breakthrough.
    http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/Grants-Subs/DGAS-SGSA_eng.asp
  • Eldad Haber, jointly appointed in Earth and Ocean Sciences and Mathematics, has been awarded a NSERC Industrial Research Chair (IRC). The IRC program is designed to enhance and develop research connections between universities and industry and to provide enhanced training environments. More information about the IRC program can be found at:
    http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/CFS-PCP/IRC-PCI_eng.asp
  • Christoph Hauert has been granted an Early Career Scholarship award at UBC's Peter Wall Institute for Advance Study for 2009-10. These scholars are chosen based on highly promising records with the possibilities of intellectual and interdisciplinary exchange with peers in very different areas of research.
    http://www.pwias.ubc.ca/programs/residential-programs/early-career-scholars.php"
  • Gordon Slade has been awarded the 2010 CRM-Fields-PIMS prize. The CRM-Fields-PIMS prize is the premier prize for research awarded jointly by the three Canadian mathematics institutes. It recognizes exceptional achievement in the mathematical sciences for research conducted primarily in Canada or in affiliation with a Canadian university.

Teaching awards:

Student awards:

  • Graduate Award Winners for 2009-2010:

    Vanier Scholarship: Cindy Blois

    PIMS-IGTC Fellowships: Jun Allard, William Carlquist, Kelly Paton

    NSERC Fellowships: Kael Dixon, Joanna Fawcett, Kyle Hambrook, Ali Fatehi Hassanabad, Jennifer Morrison, Iain Moyles, Daniel Pareja, Kelly Paton

    University Graduate Fellowships: Roland Bauerschmidt Yu-Ting Chen, Craig Cowan, Alex Duncan, Mostafa Fazly, Hardeep Gill, Jay Heumann, Xiaohu Ji, Vishaal Kapoor, Aurel Meyer, Andrew Morrison, Cihan Okay, Kai Rothauge, Ryan Schwartz, Dennis Timmers, Tereza Wei

    MSc. Fellowships: Alexander Jakobsen, Athena Nguyen, Ali Vakil

  • Farzin Barekat, an outstanding third year Honours Mathematics and Physics student, has won designation as a Wesbrook Scholar and winner of HSBC Emerging Leader Scholarship (a Premier Undergraduate Scholarship).

    The Wesbrook Scholars and Premier Undergraduate Scholarships are encouraging students who can balance high academic achievement with outstanding contributions to society through a range of volunteer, cultural, and sporting activities.

2008 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Ivar Ekeland has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada.

    Election to the RSC recognizes the merits and achievements of distinguished individuals from all branches of learning who have achieved distinction, both nationally and internationally, through research and scholarly work in the arts, humanities and sciences. It is the highest academic accolade in Canada that is available to scientists and scholars.

  • Stephanie Van Willigenburg has been awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship for 2008 - 2009!

    The Humboldt Research Fellowships are strongly competitive awards with which the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables highly-qualified scientists and scholars from abroad to spend extended periods of research in Germany. Steph will be spending part of 2009 at the University of Hannover.

Teaching awards:

  • The Department Teaching Awards expanded in 2008 to include both graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

    Two Graduate Student Teaching awards:
    Adam Clay and Ryan Lukeman

    Postdoctoral Teaching Award:
    Ronnie Pavlov

  • Stephanie van Willigenburg has won the 2008 UBC Faculty of Science Killam Teaching Prize.

    This prize recognizes instructors who have shown "... the ability to motivate students and stimulate critical thinking, sustained teaching excellence and developent of innovative approaches to teaching methodology and curricula." The recipient also receives a cash award.

    For more details on this prize, please see

    www.science.ubc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=24

Student awards:

  • The 2008 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition took place on December 2008.
    Cedric Lin was the UBC high scorer on the 2008 Putnam exam for the third year in a row, this time placing in the top 15 in the entire competition (out of a total of 3,627 participants). Other high scorers from UBC included Farzin Barekat, whose top-50 ranking earned him an Honourable Mention, and Stanley Xiao, who placed in the top 120 participants. Overall, UBC had eight students place in the top 500.

    UBC's team placed 19th among the 405 universities and colleges having Putnam teams. We had 23 people participate in the exam; 19 of them scored at or above the median, and 15 of them scored at least 10 points (which is enough to place in the top third of all contestants).

    Congratulations to all the students who participated, and thanks to the department for their great support of the practice sessions!

  • Amir Moradifam won the prestigious Killam Predoctoral Fellowship

    The following students won NSERC Fellowships:
    Michael LeBlanc (Alexander Graham Bell CGS D), Andrew Brown (PGS M), Keira Gunn (PGS M), Chan Ian (PGS M), Tiffany Chao (PGS M), Sitar Scott (PGS D), Rose Simon (PGS D), Cindy Blois (extended PGSM), Shane Cernele (CGS M), Tyler Helmuth (PGS M), Jerome Lefebvre (PGS M), Michael Lindstrom (PGS M), Carol Ross (PGS M), Vincent Sippola (PGS M), William Thompson (PGS M)

    The following students won University Graduate Fellowships:
    Omer Dushek, James Clarkson, Adam Clay (UGF/Pacific Century Graduate Scholarship), Vishaal Kapoor (partial UGF), Erez Louidor, Ryan Lukeman (UGF/Pacific Century Graduate Scholarship), Aurel Meyer (partial UGF), Andrew Morrison (UGF/ Josephine T. Berthier Fellowship), Liang Zhu

    In addition, Omer Dushek, Ryan Lukeman, and Jennifer Morrison won new IGTC awards.

  • The 2007 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition took place on December 1, 2007. The top scorer at UBC was Cedric Lin, who achieved an Honourable Mention, ranking in the top 75 participants overall. Three other UBC students earned spots in the top 300 participants, and a total of nine UBC students were ranked in the top 600.

    The UBC Putnam Team ranked 15th out of 413 participating institutional teams. A total of 3753 students from 516 colleges and universities participated. A total of 25 students from UBC participated, the highest participation rate in our history.

    More information about the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition can be found here:
    http://math.scu.edu/putnam/

2007 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Martin Barlow has won the Canadian Mathematical Society 2008 Jeffery-Williams Prize that recognizes mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research.

    For more details, please see the press release from the CMS. More information about the prize itself can be found at the CMS web site.

  • Jim Bryan and Michael Doebeli both awarded a Killam Faculty Research Fellowship for next year.

    The purpose of the award, based on special distinction of intellect, is to assist promising faculty members, who wish to devote full time to research and study in their field during a recognized study leave.

    Jim has also been awarded a Visiting Research Professorship at the Miller Institute for Basic Science at UC Berkeley. The purpose of this Professorship is to bring promising or eminent scientists to the Berkeley campus on a short-term basis for collaborative research interactions. More info at: http://millerinstitute.berkeley.edu/page.php?nav=24

  • David Brydges has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

    RSC, founded in 1882, is Canada's oldest and most prestigious scholarly organization, recognizing "the extraordinary accomplishments of persons of talent, expertise and creativity in all fields."

    Election to RSC is the highest honour that can be attained by scholars, artists and scientists in Canada.

    More information about the Royal Society of Canada can be found here:
    RSC Home Page
    Press Release of New Fellows
    Citations

  • Joel Feldman has been awarded the CRM-Fields-PIMS prize for 2007. This prize is awared jointly by the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM) of l'Université de Montré'al, the Fields Institute, and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences. An announcement of this prize has been posted on the PIMS and CRM web sites:

    2007 CRM-Fields-PIMS Award Announcement
    English: http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prix_an.shtml
    French: http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prix_fr.shtml

  • Joel Feldman has also been awarded the 2007 CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics. More information about this prize can be found at the Canadian Association of Physicists website:

    English: http://www.cap.ca/awards/crm.html
    French: http://www.cap.ca/awards/crm-f.html

  • Nassif Ghoussoub has won the 2007 Jeffery-Williams Prize given by the Canadian Mathematical Society.

    Canadian Mathematical Society Press Release
    Jeffery-Williams Prize Description

  • Nassif Ghoussoub and The Ha both won Faculty of Science Achievement Awards for outstanding service and leadership.

  • Alexander Holroyd has been awarded the 2007 André-Aisenstadt Prize. This award is given by the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM) of l'Université de Montréal to a young talented Canadian researchers. More information about this prize, as well as other prizes given out by CRM, can be found here:

    English: http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prix_an.shtml
    French: http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prix_fr.shtml

  • Leah Keshet, Izabella Laba and Zinovy Reichstein have been awarded in the 2007 competition NSERC accelerator Supplements.

    These highly competitive awards provide substantial and timely resources to outstanding researchers who have a well-established research program and who are at a key point in their careers at which they can make, or capitalize on, a significant breakthrough.

  • Izabella Laba has won the Canadian Mathematical Society 2008 Krieger-Nelson Prize, which recognizes outstanding research by a female.

    For more details, please see the press release from the CMS. More information about the prize itself can be found at the CMS web site.

  • Don Ludwig was elected as a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, announced in their press release.

    Professor emeritus Donald Ludwig is one of two Canadians inducted this year into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

    One of 203 fellows and 24 foreign honorary members elected to the academy in 2007, Ludwig joins a list of inductees that includes former vice-president Al Gore, former U.S. Supreme Court associate justice Sandra Day O'Connor, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and filmmaker Spike Lee.

  • Ronald van Luijk is the winner of the 2007 G. de B. Robinson Award. He will receive the award at the Society's 2007 Winter Meeting in London, Ontario.

    For more details, please see media release on Nov 9, 2007 from CMS.

  • Yoichiro Mori, a Post-Doctoral Fellow, has won the Leslie Fox Prize in Numerical Analysis at Oxford University. This award was based on a paper he wrote on a convergence proof for the immersed boundary method.

    More information about the prize can be found here:

    Leslie Fox Prize in Numerical Analysis
    Photos of this year's winners

  • Ed Perkins has won the Canada Council Killam Research Fellowship. Ed is one of only ten awardees this year in a competition that encompasses humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences, engineering and interdisciplinary studies within these fields. These fellowships enable Canada's best scientists and scholars to devote two years to full-time research.
    The Canada Council for the Art's press release can be found here:

    http://www.canadacouncil.ca/news/releases/2007/hq128166321106725706.htm

    A busy year for Ed as he has also been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), as announced in their press release.

  • Dale Rolfsen will receive an honorary doctorate (Docteur Honoris Causa) from the University of Caen, France. The award will take place in Caen in November, where Dale will be giving a course of lectures and finishing a new edition of his book "Why are braids orderable?"

  • Jozsef Solymosi has won the 2008 CRM Andre-Aisenstadt Prize. The Andre-Aisenstadt Prize is a major national award in mathematics that is awarded to rising young Canadian stars. The selection committee was "... struck by the extraordinary efficiency and elegance of his results at the cutting edge of a new field, additive combinatorics."

    The announcement of the awards can be found at

    CRM Home Page
    and a description of the CRM Andre-Aisenstadt Prize can be found on their web page
    CRM Andre-Aisenstadt Prize page

  • Nike Vatsal has won the Canadian Mathematical Society 2007 Coxeter-James Prize. This prize recognizes young mathematicians have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research.

    For more details, please see the press release from the CMS. More information about the prize itself can be found at the CMS web site.

Teaching awards:

  • Joel Feldman has won the 2007 UBC Faculty of Science Killam Teaching Prize. This prize recognizes instructors who have shown "... the ability to motivate students and stimulate critical thinking, sustained teaching excellence and development of innovative approaches to teaching methodology and curricula." The recipient of the prize also receives $5000.

    For more details on this prize, please see

    www.science.ubc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=24

  • Greg Martin has won the 2007 UBC Faculty of Science Killam Teaching Prize. This prize recognizes instructors who have shown "... the ability to motivate students and stimulate critical thinking, sustained teaching excellence and development of innovative approaches to teaching methodology and curricula." The recipient of the prize also receives $5000.

    For more details on this prize, please see

    www.science.ubc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=24

  • Katya Yurasovskaya is one of 5 winners in the Faculty of Science of a UBC Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Award. The award includes a prize of $1000, and was awarded for Katya's work organizing problem-solving workshops for MATH 180 and 184 students.


Student awards:

  • James Bailey has won the Accelerate BC Award of Excellence in Life Sciences for his internship project,"Determining the kinetics of self-assembly of islet amyloid polypeptide in type 2 diabetes", conducted at BC Children's Hospital.

    See http://www.math.ubc.ca/~keshet/MITACS/index.htm for more information on the project.

  • The following students are winners of the 2007-08 University Graduate Fellowship:

    Sandra Kliem
    Ryan Lukeman
    Roger Mullen Woodford
    Samara Pillay
    Liang Zhu

  • The following students received NSERC awards. Their proposed research titles are as follows:

    Karsten Chipeniuk (Graduate)
    Fourier Analytic Detection of Structures Contained in Sumsets of Primes and Continuous Analogues
    Tyler Dodds (Undergraduate)
    Approximations for Probability Densities of Pseudo-Periodic Bistable Climate Processes
    Alexander Duncan (Graduate)
    SAGBI Bases and Invariant Theory
    Hardeep Gill (Graduate)
    Superprocesses with dependent spatial motion
    Alexandra Jilkine (Graduate)
    Mathematical Modelling of Cytokinesis
    John Lang (Undergraduate)
    Mathematical Biology: Modelling the Spread of Disease
    Alan Lindsay (Graduate)
    Plate Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems Capacitor Devices and blow up behavior of fourth order partial differential equations
    Andrew Staal (Graduate)
    Algebraic Geometry - Singularities, Jet Schemes, and Multiplier Ideals
    Justin Tzou (Undergraduate)
    A Numerical Optimization Algorithm
    Erick Wong (Graduate)
    Combinatorial properties of binary quadratic forms

  • The UBC Putnam Team was awarded an honourable mention in the 2006 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. They ranked 11th out of 402 participating institutional teams. A total of 3640 students from 508 colleges and universities participated.

    The 3 members of the UBC Putnam Team consisted of Farzin Barekat, Cedric Lin, and Samuel Wong. A total of 23 students from UBC participated, the highest participation rate in our history.

    The top scorer among the UBC Putnam Team was Cedric Lin, who achieved an outstanding ranking in the top 25. Three other UBC students earned spots in the best 300 participants overall, and a total of seven UBC students were ranked in the top 520.

    More information about the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition can be found here:

    http://math.scu.edu/putnam/

    A complete list of winners and outstanding achievers, and the prizes they've won, are posted at

    http://www.math.harvard.edu/putnam/2006_results/

2006 Awards

Academic awards and honours:

  • Robert Miura has won the 2006 Leroy P. Steele Prize with C.S. Gardner, J.M. Greene, and M.D. Kruskal for the seminal paper Korteweg-de Vries equation and generalization. VI. Methods for exact solution. Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 27(1974), 97--133. The Steele Prize is a prestiguous award given by the American Mathematical Society. More information about this prize can be found at

    MS Prize - Leroy P. Steele Prize web site

  • Jozsef Solymosi has won a 2006 Sloan Research Fellowship which is awarded annually to approximately 20 outstanding young mathematicians who have received their doctorate degree from a college or university in the US or Canada less than 6 years ago. A list of recipients for this award (including one of ours from last year) can be found here:

    http://www.sloan.org/programs/fellowshiplist.shtml

  • Nike Vatsal has won the 2006 Ribenhoim Prize awarded by the Canadian Number Theory Association. This prize is awarded every 4 years to a young number theorist (as defined as having received their doctorate less than 12 years ago) who is Canadian or has connections with Canadian mathematics. For further details, see

    http://www.pims.math.ca/science/2006/06cnta/prize.html

Student awards:

  • Miguel Angel Moyers Gonzalez has been awarded the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society (CAIMS) Cecil Graham Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2006 for his doctoral thesis

    Transient Effects in Oilfield Cementing Flows

    The recipient of the award receives a trophy, a monetary prize and a one-year membership in the Society, as well as being invited to present their thesis at the Annual Meeting of the CAIMS.

    More information about this prize award can be found on CAIMS's web page:

    http://www.caims.ca/Awards/DDaward.html

2005 Awards

Academic awards and honours:


NSERC Strategic Grants and Research Chairs:

  • Alejandro Adem has been awarded a Tier I Canada Research Chair. A profile of his research is here:

    Research profile

    Details about Canada Research Chairs can be found here:

    Program Details

  • James Feng, Ian Frigaard and Mark Martinez (Chemical Engineering) have been awarded a NSERC strategic grant to research smart spacers for extended reach horizontal well cementing.

  • Richard Kenyonhas been awarded a Tier I Canada Research Chair. A profile of his research is here:

    Research profile

    Details about Canada Research Chairs can be found here:

    Program Details

  • Philip Loewen, Guy Dumont (ECE), Michael Davies (ECE) have been awarded a NSERC strategic grant to research autonomous cross-directional systems.


Honorary degrees:

  • Nassif Ghoussoub was awarded a "Doctorat Honoris Causa" from the University of Paris, June, 2004. This is in recognition of Nassif's research accomplishments in mathematics and for his many contributions to the discipline worldwide, through his role in the founding of PIMS, MITACS and BIRS.


Teaching awards:


Student awards:

  • Kristen Shaw has won an international competition for her USRA project from the Cryptologia journal.

  • UBC Putnam Team placed 2 students in the top 75 contestants in the 2004 Putnam Competition, a challenging North American mathematics competition for undergraduates. This achievement awarded Daniel Brox and Dustin Tseng Honorable Mentions. A total of 15 students from UBC entered this competion.

    Keeping up a tradition of strong performance, UBC's team was ranked 13th out of all institutions in North America. In all, we had thirteen students place in the top 1200 in North America, and nine in the top 600.

    More information about the Putnam competition can be found here:

    http://math.scu.edu/putnam/

2004 Awards

  • James Carrell has won the Faculty of Science Achievement Award for dedicated service to the Mathematics Department and the Canadian mathematical community.

  • Adriana Dawes was a co-winner of the joint CMS/CAIMS poster award. Details are posted on the webpage of the CMS/CAIMS Summer 2004 Meeting.

  • Mary-Margaret Daisley has won the Faculty of Science Achievement Award for dedicated service to the faculty, staff and students of the UBC Mathematics Department.

  • Liam Watson was one of ten winner's of the U.B.C. Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.



2003 and earlier Awards

  • Izabella Laba is the winner of the Canadian Mathematical Society's Coxeter-James Prize for 2003. This award recognizes outstanding young mathematicians who are either Canadian or work in Canada. The citation refers to her work on the Kakeya conjecture on Hausdorff and Minkowski dimension of Besicovitch sets with Nets Katz and Terence Tao, which surmounts a natural barrier to improving earlier lower bounds by Thomas Wolff and Jean Bourgain. Her current work with Michael T. Lacey deals with questions in combinatorial number theory and measure theory, constructing, with Michael T. Lacey, "large" sets of integers without k-progression.

  • Gordon Slade is the co-winner of the Prix de L'Institut Henri Poincaré (IHP) 2003 with Remco van der Hofstad of the Stieltjes Institute for Mathematics, Delft University, for the paper

    Convergence of Critical Oriented Percolation to Super-Brownian Motion Above 4+1 Dimensions
    Remco van der Hofstad and Gordon Slade Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré (B) Probabilités et Statistiques, Volume 39, Issue 3.

  • UBC Putnam Team placed in the top-10 among participating universities and colleges in North America in the 2003 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. More information is found here.

 
 
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