2019 Shaw Prize awarded to French mathematician

All audiences

Michel Talagrand, a professor at the Sorbonne and former research director at CNRS, has been awarded the 2019 Shaw Prize in mathematics, considered the “Asian Nobel.”

Talagrand, a member of the French academy of sciences, was recognized for his exceptionally broad work on “concentration inequalities, on suprema of stochastic processes, and on rigorous results for spin glasses.”

As noted on the site of the philanthropic organization that chooses the winners, the Shaw Prize was established in Hong Kong in 2002. Carrying an award of a million dollars, it covers three domains (astronomy, life sciences and medicine, and mathematical sciences) and honors scholars of all nationalities who have made "significant advances in research and whose works have led to positive results” having a “profound impact on humanity.”

French scholars, especially mathematicians, are frequent recipients of the Shaw Prize: Claire Voisin, a professor at the Collège de France, was honored in 2017; Maxim Kontsevitch, a professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, won in 2012.

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