Professor Richard Hamilton Wins Shaw Prize for Mathematics

Richard Hamilton, Davies Professor of Mathematics, has won the 2011 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences. The Shaw Prize is given annually in three areas: astronomy, life science and medicine, and mathematical sciences. This is the eighth year of the Shaw Prize; awardees will be honored at a ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 28.

The Shaw Prize is awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions and significant advances in their current field of study. The award is dedicated to \"furthering societal progress, enhancing quality of life, and enriching humanity's spiritual civilization,\" according to the Shaw Prize website. Professor Hamilton is receiving the award for his work with Ricci flow in Riemannian geometry. The $1 million award will be shared equally with fellow winner Demetrios Christodoulou, professor of mathematics and physics at the ETH, a science and technology university in Zurich, Switzerland.

Hamilton's mathematical contributions are primarily in the field of differential geometry and more specifically geometric analysis. He is best known for having discovered the Ricci flow and suggesting the research program that ultimately led to the proof, by Grigori Perelman, of the Thurston geometrization conjecture and the solution of the Poincaré conjecture.

Hamilton was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry in 1996 and the Clay Research Award in 2003. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. He also received the AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for a Seminal Contribution to Research in 2009.

The Shaw Prize is an international award managed and administered by The Shaw Prize Foundation. Additional information can be found on the Shaw Prize website.