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Enrico Bombieri became enthralled with mathematics from an early age. He started reading about the theory of number at the age of 13. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Milan at the age of 23, where he was immediately appointed as an assistant professor. He continued his studies in the theory of number with Professor Harold Davenport at Trinity College in Cambridge University (U.K.) in 1964. In the following year, he became a full professor of mathematics, serving first at the University of Cagliari (1965), then the University of Pisa (1966-1974) and then the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (1974-1977), before joining the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he is currently IBM von Neumann Professor of mathematics.

Professor Bombieri is an enormously brilliant mathematician and one of the world’s leading authorities on number theory and analysis. His work, over the past 40 years, covers a wide spectrum within the theory of number – the analytic theory of L-functions, arithmetic geometry and Diophantine approximations, the distribution of primes, sieves and exponential sums. His work reveals a vast knowledge of the subject, an incisive clarity of thought, versatility and remarkable technical skill. His studies of the “large sieve” and its application in what is now known as the “Bombieri-Vinogradov Theorem” are central readings for every graduate researcher. He is also known for the “Bombieri-Lang Conjecture,” the “Bombieri Norm” and other fundamental contributions. Some of his results, particularly in the prime number theory, have potential applications to cryptography and security of data transmission and identification.

Professor Bombieri received many distinguished awards and honors, including the prestigious Fields Medal (1974), Feltrinelli Prize (1976), Balzan Prize (1980), Honorary Doctorate degree (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the University of Pisa, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (France), Cavaliered i Gran Croce al Merito della Republica (Italy). He was also awarded the Joseph Doob Prize (2008) jointly with Walter Gubler for their book “Heights in Diophantine Geometry.” He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the Accademia Nationale dei Quaranta in Rome, the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze, the European Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy, the Institut de France, and Honorary Member of the London Mathematical Society. He served on the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union (1979-1982).

In addition to his comprehensive book with Gubler, Professor Bombieri authored two other monographs and more than 160 scientific papers published in leading mathematical journals.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Professor Sunyaev graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1966 and received his Candidate of Sciences (PhD equivalent) and Doctor of Sciences degrees from Moscow University in 1968 and 1973, respectively. Between 1968-1982, he served as a scientific researcher at the Institute of Applied Mathematics and subsequently as Head of the Laboratory of Theoretical Astrophysics at the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He became full professor at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology from 1975-2001 and Head of the High Energy Astrophysics Department of the Space Research Institute in Moscow from 1982-2002. Professor Rashid Allevich Sunyaev is a prominent Russian physicist whose outstanding contributions to high energy astrophysics and cosmology profoundly impacted both fields and placed him at the forefront of contemporary astrophysicists.

Professor Sunyaev’s fundamental contributions to the advancement of cosmology and astrophysics during the past thirty years cannot be over-emphasized. Among his most distinguished contributions are: his predictions of acoustic peaks in the cosmic microwave background angular distribution, and the development of both the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (S-Z effect) on clusters of galaxy and the theory of disk accretion (Standard Shakura-Sunyaev disk) and observational appearance of black holes in binary systems and active galactic nuclei. His achievements drove theoretical developments to new frontiers and led to the generation of powerful and widely used tools to study structures in the universe. Sunyaev also made significant contributions to space science. He led the team that built the X-ray observatory on Mir space station and the GRANAT orbiting X-ray observatory and is currently working with his team in preparing the world’s first astronomical X-ray satellite and on other projects related to the Planck Mission of the European Space Agency.

Professor Sunyaev’s outstanding accomplishments were recognized by numerous honors and awards. He is a member of the International Astronomical Union, member and former vice-president of the European Astronomical Society, member of the American Physical Society, member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, international member of the American Philosophical Society, foreign fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and foreign associate of the US National Academy of Science. He is also an honorary member of the Bashkortostan and Tatarstan Academies of Sciences. In addition, Professor Sunyaev held numerous visiting and honorary professorships, Lectureships and visiting scientist/scholar positions at leading universities including Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Virginia, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University, California Institute of Technology, Cambridge University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Leiden University, Toronto University and Bose National Center for Basic Sciences in Calcutta.

Professor Sunyaev was recognized by several prestigious awards including Bruno Rossi Prize, Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Heinemann Prize in Astrophysics, Gruber Prize, Alexander Friedman Prize from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Bruce Medal, Karl Schwarzschild Medal of the German Astronomical Society and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He published over 300 papers, some of which stand out among the most highly cited publications in astrophysics.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Richard Friend graduated from Trinity College in 1974 with a B.A. (First Class) in Theoretical Physics and obtained his Ph.D. from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1979. He joined the Department of Physics at Cambridge in 1980, where he is currently holding the prestigious Cavendish Professorship of Physics. He is also a Fellow of St. John’s College, a Chairman of the Council of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and the Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore. In addition, he is a principal investigator in the Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) on Nanotechnology in Cambridge, the founder and Chief Scientist of Cambridge Display Technology Ltd. and a Consultant at Plastic Logic Ltd.

Professor Friend’s pioneering work on the semiconductor physics of conjugated polymers has had a profound impact on physics and beyond. He has essentially invented a new type of electronics using organic semiconductors and persisted with their development into polymer light-emitting diodes that are now widely used and offer the potential of cheaper, larger and flexible displays. He continues to develop polymer photovoltaics and directly printed polymer transistors. He authored around 700 publications in scientific journals, and more than 40 patents. The Institute for Scientific Information identified him as the most cited physics scientist in the UK for the decade 1990-1999. He is currently one of the two most cited physicists in his country (~ 39,000 citations).

Professor Friend received numerous awards and honors. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Honorary Fellow of Trinity College (Cambridge) and Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales (Bangor). He holds honorary doctorate degrees from the universities of Linkoping (Sweden), Mons-Hainaut (Belgium), and Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh). He is also the recipient of the prestigious Rumford Medal of the Royal Society of London, Silver Medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Faraday Medal of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, Gold Medal of the European Material Research Society and Descartes Prize of the European Commission. He was knighted in 2003 for his services to physics.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Rudiger Wehner graduated from Kaiserin Friedrich Gymnasium in 1960, and obtained his Ph.D in biology, chemistry, and philosophy from the Goethe University in Frankfurt in 1967. He spent his postdoctoral research at Yale University in the USA, then returned to Germany and was appointed professor of zoology, specifically physiology, at the University of Zurich in 1974, where he headed the Zoological Institute as director until his retirement in 2005. 

Professor Wehner showed that while roaming over desert terrain for distances of up to 100 meters, Cataglyphis employs a computational strategy called vector navigation: it measures all angles steered (by employing a neural compass) and all distances covered (by employing a neural odometer) and integrates these measures into a mean vector, which guides it back to its start. One of Wehner’s major ‘landmark’ discoveries is how Cataglyphis uses the pattern of polarized light in the sky (which humans are unable to see) as a compass to determine walking directions. Wehner and his team unraveled the computational and neurobiological details of the ant’s skylight compass, discovered and studied various mechanism of landmark guidance that complement the animal’s vector navigation system and simulated the animal’s navigational technique in computer software and implemented it a in robot (Sahabot) that navigates by polarized skylight cues just as Cataglyphis does. Furthermore, his finding that the ant’s brain is organized in a modular way, with separate sensory-motor systems devoted to different behavioral tasks, has important implications for understanding the general design features of larger brains such as those of birds and mammals.

Wehner recently extended his research scope to include studying the physiological and ecological framework within which the ant’s navigational skill has evolved. He found that the spatial and temporal foraging characteristics, a particular mode of respiration and special expression patterns of heat-shock genes allow for an extreme reduction of water loss and the most extreme heat tolerance observed in any terrestrial animal. Furthermore, Wehner performed molecular systematics and phylogeography to uncover the evolutionary history of Cataglyphis.

Professor Wehbner published four books, a 330-page Handbook chapter, and 225 scientific articles. His 1000-page Zoology textbook THE WEHNER/GEHRING, now in its 7th edition, is widely used and highly valued by colleagues and students alike. Wehner has received numerous awards and honors.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Simon Donaldson obtained his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 1980 and Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1983. During his doctoral studies he proved results on 4-dimensional manifolds which stunned the mathematical world. One consequence of this was the existence of exotic differentiable structures on Euclidean 4-space. After completing his Ph.D., he was appointed as a Junior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, then he spent the following year at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University as a visiting member. When he was merely 28 years old, he became the Wallis Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. He held that position until 1997 after which he worked for a year as Hoagland professor at Stanford University in the U.S.A. before moving to Imperial College, London in 1999, where he is currently the Royal Society Research Professor of Pure Mathematics and President of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the Imperial College in London.

Professor Donaldson’s distinguished contributions to mathematics fall into three main categories: the applications of the gauge theory to 4-manifold topology, the differential geometry of holomorphic vector bundles, and certain aspects of symplectic geometry. He spurred great interest in the gauge theory by discovering deep connections between four-dimensional topology and Yang-Mills theory, and by using ideas from that theory to solve problems of mathematics.

A highly acclaimed mathematician, Donaldson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London at the age of 29, and simultaneously awarded the Field Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. Furthermore, he received several awards, including the Royal Medal of the Royal Society (1992), the Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science (1994), and the Polya Prize of the London Mathematical Society (1999). His other honors include plenary lectureships at the International and the European Congresses of Mathematicians and the International Congress of Mathematical Physics. He was elected a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2000, and an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College (Cambridge University) and St. Anne’s College (Oxford University). He published numerous original articles, conference papers, books and book chapters and supervised some 35 graduate students at Oxford University. He also served on the editorial boards of major mathematical journals and was Chief Editor of Topology for 6 years. He also served on the Council of the London Mathematical Society and the Scientific Committees of the Max Planck Institute, the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies) and the Newton Institute at Cambridge. From 1988-2002, he was the Vice-President of the International Mathematical Union.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Mudumbai Narasimhan received his B.A. (honors) in Mathematics in Madras in 1953 and his Ph.D. Bombay in 1960. He served as Professor of Mathematics at India’s preeminent Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for more than 25 years, and was named Professor of Eminence at the Institute in 1990. Between 1993-1999, he was Director of Mathematics at the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. Under his leadership, the center became internationally recognized for its excellence in algebraic geometry, and for providing training and research opportunities for hundreds of researchers and students from various countries. From 2000-2003, Narasimhan was Visiting Professor at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA). in Trieste. He is currently Honorary Fellow of the Tata Institute.

Narasimhan’s work was primarily focused on algebraic geometry, particularly the theory of holomorphic vector bundles on compact Riemann surfaces. However, over the past 35 years, his work covered nearly all other aspects of mathematics, and linked with the works of the greatest mathematicians, while maintaining its high originality and impeccable taste.

Narasimhan’s brilliant career as a mathematician and educator took him to major universities and institutions worldwide, and won him the admiration of the community of mathematicians. He was recognized by other prestigious national and international honors. He was a member of the Royal Society of London, a Chevalier de l’ordre National du Mérite (France), and a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, awarded by the President of India. He was a President of the National Board for Higher Mathematics in India, a President of the International Mathematical Union’s Commission on Development and Exchange, a Vice-President of the International Center of Pure and Applied Mathematics in France, and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union. In 2002, a special symposium entitled “A Colloquium in Geometry” was held in honor of Narasimhan’s 70th birthday, in which his students and peers discussed his enormous contributions to mathematics.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Frank Wilczek obtained his B.S. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, M.S. degree in mathematics and physics, and his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. He became a full Professor at Princeton at the age of 28. In 1980, he joined the University of California, Santa Barbara as a full professor, where he later became the Chancellor Robert Huttenbach Professor of Physics. In 1989, he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he became the J. Robert Oppenheimer Professor. In 2000, he was appointed as the Herman Feshbach chair of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently a Professor at MIT and also an Adjunct Professor at the Centro de Estudios Científicos of Valdivia, Chile. He was a Sloan Foundation Fellow, MacArthur Foundation Fellow, visiting professor at Harvard University and Lorentz Professor at Leiden University.

Professor Wilczek is best known for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the development of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the invention of axions, and the discovery and exploitation of new forms of quantum statistics (anyons). When only 21 years old and a graduate student at Princeton University working with D. Gross, he defined the properties of color gluons, which hold atomic nuclei together. This groundbreaking discovery made possible the elucidation of QCD as the correct model for the Strong Force, one of the four known forces in nature.

In addition to over 350 scientific articles and an impressive list of invited lectures, Professor Wilczek also devotes considerable effort to reflecting on the broader philosophical meaning of results in modern physics, and to communicating these results to a broader scientific audience. He contributes regularly to Physics Today and to Nature explaining topics at the frontiers of Physics. These efforts have been warmly received and have won him the Lilienfeld Prize. His popular lecture “The World’s Numerical Recipe” is globally available on the Internet, while two of his pieces were anthologized in Best American Scientific Writing (2003, 2005). Together with his wife, he wrote a beautiful book, Longing for the Harmonies.

His outstanding contributions earned him many awards and honors including the UNESCO’s Dirac Medal, the Sakurai Prize of the American Physical Society, the Michelson Prize from Case Western University and the Lorentz Medal of the Netherlands Academy. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences of the United States, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and the Netherlands Academy of Sciences. He is a Trustee of the University of Chicago, Editor in Chief of Annals of Physics and advisory editor or member of editorial board for several other periodicals.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.