Yau To Support Math Students

Harvard Mathematics Professor Shing-Tung Yau, one of this year’s two winners of the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, announced on Monday that he intends use his portion of the award to create a fund at China’s Tsinghua University to support the study of mathematics, especially among low income students.

According to the Wolf Foundation’s website, the non-profit organization annually awards $100,000 grants to scientists and artists “for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples.” Grants are  awarded in six categories: agriculture, chemistry, medicine, physics, arts, and mathematics.

Although Yau—who won the Fields Medal in 1982 and currently serves as the chair of the Harvard Mathematics Department—never attended Tsinghua, he said he decided to donate his prize money to this top Chinese university because it has produced extraordinary mathematics talent in the past.

Yau said in an e-mailed statement that two of the “greatest Chinese mathematicians” studied and taught at Tsinghua University, including Shiing-Shen Chern, who served as Yau’s mentor while at the University of California, Berkeley.

Yau added that he hopes that the fund, which will bear his name, will help the university’s students “achieve high scholarship” so “that they may [also] be awarded the Wolf Prize in the future.”

Yau, who received the award for his contributions to the creation of the field of geometric analysis, is credited with solving several significant conjectures in geometry, topology, and mathematical physics.

According to the Wolf Foundation’s  website, Yau will officially receive his award from Israeli President Shimon Peres and Israeli Education Minister and Wolf Foundation Council Chairman Gideon Sa’ar at a ceremony in Jerusalem this May.

Stony Brook University Professor Dennis P. Sullivan, who shares this year’s prize for mathematics with Yau, will also be recognized during the upcoming ceremony for his work in algebraic topology and conformal dynamics.