In this issue of the Newsletter

Milestones and Prizes

Congratulations to John Pardon on winning the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize for important results in geometry and topology, particularly in the field of symplectic geometry and pseudo-holomorphic curves, which are certain types of smooth surfaces in manifolds.

From Billiard Dynamics to Riemann Surfaces

From Billiard Dynamics to Riemann Surfaces. By Samuel Grushevsky Teichmuller Dynamics via Algebraic Geometry

Random Paths and Purpose: A Conversation with Scott Sheffield

Random Paths and Purpose: A Conversation with Scott Sheffield. Interview by Evita Nestoridi

Random Paths to Quantum Field Theory

Random Paths to Quantum Field Theory. By Antti Kupiainen

John Pardon Awarded the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize

Congratulations to John Pardon on winning the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize for important results in geometry and topology, particularly in the field of symplectic geometry and pseudo-holomorphic curves: More information can be found here: breakthroughprize.org/Laureates/3/L3984 https://breakthroughprize.org/News/91

Science Playwriting Competition – Staged Readings Wednesday, April 16, 2025

The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics and the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics are pleased to present the 2025 Science Playwriting Competition Staged Readings of the Winning Plays. First Place: The Physics of Fiction By Alex Dremann Second Place: Vagabond Lives of the Barnacle Poets by Pamela Hobart Carter Third Place: Mother of Chemistry by Rex … Read more

Stony Brook University Art Crawl: Spring 2025

Art Crawl: Friday, April 4, 2023, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm Free guided tours of Stony Brook University art galleries – join at any point! Stony Brook University hosts a variety of renowned art galleries that provide unique spaces and opportunities for cultural and artistic exchanges.  The art crawl offers tours of five galleries this spring—visiting each … Read more

Della Pietra Lecture Series Presents Edward Frenkel, April 21-24

The Della Pietra Lecture Series is pleased to present a series of lectures by Edward Frenkel, University of California, Berkeley All talks will be streamed live at scgp.stonybrook.edu/live General Public Lecture  Monday April 21, at 5:00pm Location: Della Pietra Family Auditorium – 103 Reception at 4:15pm, Simons Center Lobby  Title: Where Does Mathematics Come From? Abstract: … Read more

Contact geometry, general relativity, and thermodynamics: March 2-6, 2026

Organized by: Alberto Abbondandolo (Bochum) Mohammed Abouzaid (Stanford) Vladimir Chernov (Dartmouth) Leonid Polterovich (Tel Aviv) Stefan Suhr (Bochum) The workshop will bring together experts in contact geometry, topology, and mathematical physics to focus on novel methods and phenomena in the geometry of the space of Legendrian submanifolds of contact manifolds, with an emphasis on causal … Read more

Contact geometry, general relativity and thermodynamics: February 9- March 20, 2026

Organized by: Alberto Abbondandolo (Bochum) Mohammed Abouzaid (Stanford) Vladimir Chernov (Dartmouth) Leonid Polterovich (Tel Aviv) Stefan Suhr (Bochum) The primary goal of this program is to investigate the causal structure on the space of Legendrian submanifolds—an emerging area of “hard” contact topology with deep connections to Riemannian and Lorentzian geometries, contact Hamiltonian dynamics, and Hofer-type … Read more

Flows of Reflectivity

Flows of Reflectivity March 12-June 20, 2025 Curated by Patricia Maurides (SBU Department of Art) and Karina Yager (SBU School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences) Simons Center Gallery Opening Reception: Thursday, March 27, 2025, 5:00 pm 5:00 pm: Reception, Simons Center Gallery and SCGP Lobby 5:30-6:30 pm: Art + Science talk by Patricia Maurides and … Read more

Artist and Scientist Talk: Flows of Reflectivity

Flows of Reflectivity Art + Science talk by Patricia Maurides and Karina Yager Thursday, March 27, 2025, 5:30 pm Simons Center Lecture Hall 102 Flows of Reflectivity unites artistic and scientific perspectives to examine glacier change and the dynamics of reflectivity through photography and video. Merging art and science, the exhibit deepens our understanding of … Read more

Bridging Classic and Contemporary Perspectives on Open Quantum Systems – May 4-8, 2026

Organized by: Zhen Bi, Penn State University Fiona Burnell (University of Minnesota Twin Cities) Zhu-Xi Luo (Georgia Institute of Technology) Thomas Scaffidi (University of California) Advances in the ability to create and dynamically control quantum many-body systems have catalyzed new and theoretically profound questions about collective quantum phenomena in real-world conditions. For instance, while the … Read more

Workshop: Random Geometry in Math and Physics: April 13-17, 2026

Organizers: ● Timothy Budd (Radboud University) ● Frank Ferrari (Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and International Solvay Institutes) ● Scott Sheffield (MIT) ● Herman Verlinde (Princeton University) ● Yilin Wang (IHES / ETH Zürich) ● Zhenbin Yang (Tsinghua University) The study of low dimensional models for quantum gravity, in particular Liouville and JT gravity, is … Read more