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

Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Field Theory, 1/16/12 – 1/20/12

Organized by Mike Douglas, Kevin Costello and Arthur Jaffe   Quantum field theory is a rich subject, with a long history in physics and in mathematics. In recent years it has inspired many profound developments in topology, in algebra and representation theory, and in analysis. Given the growing interest in the subject among mathematicians, it … Read more

Portraits of Physicists, by Miriam Carothers

                This series captures an era in Theoretical Physics through the faces of the Protagonists: some of them are the Pioneers, who laid down the ground for string theory by uncovering the mathematics that describes the world; then comes the New Generation, who after the Second Superstring Revolution … Read more

FILLED – The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics Seeks a Deputy Director

Stony Brook University, home to many highly ranked graduate research programs, is located 60 miles from New York City on Long Island’s scenic North Shore. Our 1,100-acre campus is home to 24,000 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students and more than 13,500 faculty and staff. The University is a member of the prestigious Association of American … Read more

Math Colloquium Featuring Sir Michael Atiyah, Points and Flags

Title: Points and Flags Speaker: Sir Michael Atiyah Date: Thursday November 10, 2011 Time: 4:00pm – 5:00pm Place: Auditorium 103, Simons Center     Abstract: I will describe and study a natural map from the configuration space of n distinct ordered points in Euclidean 3-space to the flag manifold of U(n). I will also describe … Read more

Kenji Fukaya to join the SCGP

The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics is pleased to announce that Kenji Fukaya, currently Professor of Mathematics at Kyoto University, will be joining the Center as a Permanent Member starting April 1, 2013. The Center is slated to have 6 permanent members and Kenji is the second, joining Michael Douglas. Kenji’s recent work has … Read more

Fall 2010 – Spring 2011 Program Details

Simons Center Program in Homological Mirror Symmetry, Symplectic Topology, and Invariants of Low Dimensional Manifolds Spring 2011 Program Description. The subprogram in Homological Mirror Symmetry and Symplectic Topology is organized by Paul Seidel. The subprogram on Invariants of Low Dimensional Manifolds is organized by Mikhail Khovanov and Peter Ozsvath. In addition to Khovanov and Seidel, … Read more