22-Feb-2022: Professor Neena Gupta receives Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians
The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians was awarded to Professor Neena Gupta, a mathematician of the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, in a virtual ceremony on 22nd February 2022. She received the award for the year 2021 for her outstanding work in affine algebraic geometry and commutative algebra.
On the behalf of Secretary and Department, Shri Sanjeev Varshney, Head, International Cooperation Division, DST, congratulated Dr. Neena Gupta and said that the award conferred to a female researcher will encourage other female researchers all around the world to take up mathematics as their career. “I am also sure that this recognition will motivate her further to expand research with more noteworthy outcomes in the future. It will also inspire the researchers and young mathematicians not only in our country but in the entire developing world, to undertake research in mathematical sciences,” he added.
The prize is awarded annually to a researcher from a developing country funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Government of India in association with ICTP (International Centre for Theoretical Physics) and the International Mathematical Union (IMU).
It is given to young mathematicians less than 45 years of age who have conducted outstanding research in a developing country. It is supported by DST in the memory of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a genius in pure mathematics who was essentially self-taught and made spectacular contributions to elliptic functions, continued fractions, infinite series, and analytical theory of numbers.
Professor Gupta's solution for solving the Zariski cancellation problem, a fundamental problem in Algebraic Geometry, earned her the 2014 Young Scientists Award of the Indian National Science Academy (NSA). The NSA described her solution as ‘one of the best works in algebraic geometry in recent years done anywhere’. The problem was posed by one of the most eminent founders of modern Algebraic Geometry, Oscar Zariski, in 1949. In an interview with an American university, Gupta describes the problem as ---The cancellation problem asks that if you have cylinders over two geometric structures, and that have similar forms, can one conclude that the original base structures have similar forms?
11-Dec-2020: Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians 2020 awarded to Dr. Carolina Araujo from Brazil for outstanding work in Algebraic Geometry
The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians 2020 was awarded to Dr. Carolina Araujo, Mathematician from the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a virtual ceremony on 9th December 2020.
The prize awarded annually to a researcher from a developing country funded by the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India in collaboration with ICTP (International Centre for Theoretical Physics), and the International Mathematical Union was given for her outstanding work in algebraic geometry. Her work area focuses on birational geometry, which aims to classify and describe the structure of algebraic varieties.
Dr. Araujo, who is Vice President of the Committee for Women in Mathematics at the International Mathematical Union, is the first non-Indian to receive this prize and will be a role model for all women.
Informing her about new programmes for women like Vigyan Jyoti, initiated by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST invited Dr Araujo to India to encourage women mathematicians and inspire them by her own example.
Prof. Carlos Kenig, President of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), congratulated her and praised her role in promoting women in mathematics and in organising important mathematical activities. “She has been a Simons Associate with ICTP since 2015,” he added.
Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO, Mr. Vishal V. Sharma said that a mathematician does not belong to a particular country. Dr Araujo may be a Brazilian, but she's a mathematician. She belongs to the universe because mathematics is the language of the universe.
At the award ceremony, Dr Araujo spoke about algebraic geometry, including birational geometry and foliations in a talk titled 'Algebraic Varieties with Positive Tangent Bundles'.
The Prize, given every year to young mathematicians less than 45 years of age who have conducted outstanding research in a developing country, has been instituted by DST in the memory of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a genius in pure mathematics who was essentially self-taught and made spectacular contributions to elliptic functions, continued fractions, infinite series, and analytical theory of numbers.