Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences - PIMS

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) is delighted to inform the mathematical community that the winner of the 2009 PIMS Education Prize is Gerda de Vries from the University of Alberta. This prize is intended to recognize individuals from the PIMS universities, or other educational institutions in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan who have played a major role in encouraging activities which have enhanced public awareness and appreciation of mathematics, as well as fostering communication among various groups and organizations concerned with mathematical training at all levels.

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences is now accepting nominations for the 2009 PIMS Education Prize. The prize is $1,000.

On December 16-18, Dominique Sotteau, Director of International Affairs for INRIA (l'Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique) -the French government's agency for research in computer science-visited PIMS sites at UBC, SFU and UVic. She met with researchers, postdoctoral fellows and administrators with the purpose of establishing active collaborations between INRIA and PIMS.

The Directors of the three Institutes, CRM, Fields and PIMS are pleased to announce that Martin Barlow from UBC is the recipient of the 2009 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize. Martin Barlow 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.

PIMS will host a special lecture by Dr. Jack Kalbfleisch from the Department of Biostatistics, University of Michigan, on Thursday November 13, 3:30pm, WMAX 110.

The MacArthur Foundation recently announced 25 new MacArthur Fellows for 2008, including Alexei Kitaev, who was a PIMS Distinguished Chair at UBC in October 2006, as part of the Collaborative Research Group on Quantum Topology sponsored by PIMS during 2005-2007.

At the invitation of Dohan Kim, President of the Korean Mathematical Society (KMS), a delegation of Canadian mathematicians sponsored by the Canadian Mathematical Society and PIMS attended the recent KMS meeting in South Korea (October 23-25, 2008). The delegation was led by Anthony Lau (President of the CMS, University of Alberta) and included Alejandro Adem (Director of PIMS, UBC), Nicole Tomczak-Jaegermann (University of Alberta) and Roland Speicher (Queens University).

The PIMS Postdoc Day will take place on Saturday, October 25th.

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) are calling for applications from French researchers to spend the academic year 2009-10 in one of the PIMS universities and to participate in the PIMS research activities. The applicants should be either "fonctionnaires titulaires" either at the CNRS or at a French university, and priority will be given to junior researchers ("chargé(e)es de recherches" or "maîtres de conferences").

Applications should be sent to Jean-Marc Gambaudo, Directeur Adjoint pour les Mathematiques au CNRS, and to Alejandro Adem, Director of PIMS, by December 1, 2008. They should include a vitae and a list of publications, together with a description of the research project to be done during the academic year, and the names of the PIMS researchers which would be involved in the project. Results will be announced by December 15, 2008. In the case of university faculty, once the application has been accepted, the actual appointment is subject to the person asking for a "détachement au CNRS" from his/her home institution and being accepted.

PIMS is delighted to announce that Ivar Ekeland, former Director of PIMS (2003-2008), has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.   more››

The graduation ceremony for the PIMS Summer Math Camps for aboriginal students attending or entering Brittania Secondary School was held at the UBC First Nations House of Learning on August 15 and it was featured by the Vancouver Sun. The article noted that no aboriginal student in recent memory has made it to the Grade 12 math course at Britannia secondary. Vicki Vidas, Head of the Mathematics Department at Britannia said, "The whole point is to get more aboriginal children into high school and get them to graduate. The challenge is to get them into university." This year, there will be three graduates from the PIMS Summer Camp program entering Grade 12 math at Britannia armed with the tools for success. The Junior Math Camp at Britannia prepared 19 children for Grade 8 mathematics.  more››

PIMS is delighted to announce that the University of Saskatchewan is now a full member of the PIMS consortium. Combined with the recent addition of the University of Regina, PIMS now has as its member institutions the major research universities in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Washington State.  more››

The UBC site of PIMS will be closed from Monday, August 25 to Friday August 29 (inclusive) for annual maintenance. The other PIMS sites will remain open during this time.  more››

Clifton Cunningham has been named as the Calgary site director for PIMS starting in July, 2008 for a period of three years.

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences
is pleased to announce that it has signed a
collaborative agreement with the Chern Institute
of Mathematics (CIM) at Nankai University in Tianjin,
China. CIM was founded through the initiative of the
late Professor S. S. Chern, who was also the first
director of the Institute until 1992. The current
director is Yiming Long, a member of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.   more››

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences is pleased to announce that its Board of Directors has appointed David Brydges as PIMS Deputy Director, starting on August 1, 2008. He will also serve at PIMS-UBC Site Director.

  more››

The PIMS Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) is pleased to announce that the winners of the 2008 PIMS Education Prize are Virginia Warfield (University of Washington) and Harley Weston (University of Regina).   more››

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) has welcomed the University of Regina as a full member, effective December 1, 2007.   more››

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) congratulates Dr. Malgorzata Dubiel (Simon Fraser University, PIMS SFU Education Coordinator) on being awarded a 3M Teaching Fellowship for 2008.   more››

The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) is pleased to announce that the British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education will support the International Graduate Training Centre (IGTC) in Mathematical Biology through a $120,000 grant to finance three two-year graduate student fellowships.   more››