Professor George Elliott Interviewed by Science Watch

Science Watch recently interviewed Professor George Elliott from the University of Toronto, Department of Mathematics, on his recent article “On the Classification of Simple Inductive Limit C*-Algebras, II: The Isomorphism Theorem” as their August ”Emerging Research Front paper in the field of Mathematics”.   The paper was co-written with Professors Guihua Gong and Liangqing Li from the  University of Puerto Rico.

The article asks Professor Elliott and his co-writers such questions as:

  • Why do you think your paper is highly cited?
  • Does it describe a new discovery, methodology, or synthesis of knowledge?
  • Would you summarize the significance of your paper in layman’s terms?
  • How did you become involved in this research, and how would you describe the particular challenges, setbacks, and successes that you’ve encountered along the way?
  • Where do you see your research leading in the future?
  • Do you foresee any social or political implications for your research?

The full article, with responses, can be found here

Mathletes Do It Again!

Good News Everyone!  The Mathletes VI have done it again, this year placing 1st in the Goodlife Toronto Team Marathon.

You can read all the results here

The winning runners were captained by Elio Mazzeo, and included Alex Bloemendal, Nataliya Laptyeva, Robert McCann, Matt Rideout, Didier Smets, and Mitsuru Wilson.  They reached the podium at a time of 3:2:34.6, five minutes less than last year’s run when the team came in second.

On the same day, our graduate student Henning Petzka finished third in the half marathanon at a time of 1:14:48.0.

Thanks to the members of the department who contributed money to help towards the cost of running.

A further article on the event can be found here

Congratulations, Mathletes and Henning, we’re very proud of you all!

Rollo Davidson Prize Announced

Our congratulations go to Assistant Professor Gábor Pete for being announced as this year’s Rollo Davidson Prize winner.

Along with Dr. Chritophe Garban from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon this year’s Rollo Davidson prize was jointly award for “striking and important new results for planar random processes, particularly in establishing a theory of noise sensitivity for critical percolation and the application of this theory to dynamical percolation.”

More information on the award, including past winners, can be found at the official Rollo Davidson Trust page.

Our congratulations go to them both!

Chair Wins Inventor of the Year Award

Our congratulations go to Professor Kumar Murty, Chair of the Mathematics Department, for being honoured by the Innovations and Partnerships Office and receiving the inaugural “Inventor of the Year” award in Engineering and Physical Sciences.

This award is given to ”recognize University of Toronto inventors or teams of inventors who have made a significant contribution to the University of Toronto’s innovation agenda”.  Further information on the award can be found on the Innovations and Partnership Office website.

From the Bulletin: “Murty and research associate Nikolai Volkovs have created a data integrity algorithm that represents a breakthrough in terms of its speed and its large internal state space. It is able to authenticate data at wire speeds and can be customized for each individual user. Moreover, its stream-based architecture opens up new possibilities for authenticating data on the fly as well as building higher integrity systems for greater security and reliability. The invention has been patented and a spin-off company, Prata Technologies, was founded in 2007. Murty is also working with General Electric to apply this novel authentication technology in the smart grid.”

Further information on the award and other recipients can be found at: http://www.news.utoronto.ca/campus-news/inventor-of-the-year-winners-list-2011.html

DeLury TA Award Winners Announced

We are happy to announce that this year’s winners of the Daniel B. DeLury Teaching Awards for graduate students in mathematics are:

  • Karene Chu
  • Bruce Fontaine
  • Henning Petzka

The selection committee consisted of Catherine Sulem and Abe Igelfeld.

Nominations were made by course instructors and undergraduate students.

The selection committee received many favourable comments about our TA’s as fine work is being done by many of our teaching assistants, and we can take pride in their work.

Congratulations Karene, Bruce and Henning!

Cressy Award to Math Union Co-President

This year Sergio DaSilva, co-president of the Math Union this year was one of 15 winners of a Cressy Award.

The awards are given for outstanding volunteer service to the faculty, their departments and the university and for their contributions towards enhancing student experience.

Photos of the Award winner luncheon with Dean of Arts and Science, Meric Gertler, can be found here

Congratulations to Sergio and all the other award winners!

Math and all that Jazz

Recently PhD candidate Alex Bloemendal sat down with the University of Toronto’s Bulletin to talk about how his love of music, his passion for math and an “enthralling conversation about probability” was what drew him into the Specialist Mathematics program here in the Department.

The Bulletin calls Alex “a virtuoso on the piano” who’s “favourite toy [growing up] was his mother’s Texas Instruments calculator” and talks about how there “is a common understanding among mathematicians that math is in fact the basis of sound.  Time, rhythm, meter, intervals and harmony all have a firm grounding in math.”

It then goes on to talk how, after some tough decisions, and a conversation with our own Professor Jeremy Quastel, Alex decided on doing his undergraduate degree right here at UofT.

The full article can be found on Page 8 here: http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bulletin/PDF_issues/04-19-11_web.pdf