Institute For Advanced Study Faculty Member Awarded 2005 Steele Prize

The American Mathematical Society has awarded the 2005 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research to Robert P. Langlands, who is Hermann Weyl Professor of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Three Steele Prizes are awarded annually, generally to mathematicians working in the U.S., in recognition of achievement in three distinct areas: Lifetime Achievement, Mathematical Exposition, and Seminal Contribution to Research, for which Professor Langlands was honored.

Langlands was cited for groundbreaking work in his 1970 paper "Problems in the theory of automorphic forms" [Springer Lecture Notes in Math, vol. 170, pp. 18-86]. This paper launched what became known as the Langlands Program, a series of conjectures that posit relations among seemingly unrelated concepts in number theory, algebraic geometry, and the theory of automorphic forms. Mathematicians have been working on these conjectures for the past three decades. The award citation states, "As a result of this paper, the systematic relation between global and local theory and the systematic use of adele groups became fixtures in the subject� It�s hard to think of any other instance in the history of mathematics where conjectures gave so accurate a road map of what would turn out to be true in so many different situations. And few other conjectures have generated so much research of such high quality."

A graduate of the University of British Columbia, Professor Langlands received his Ph.D. from Yale University. He taught at both Princeton and Yale Universities before joining the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1972. His previous honors include the American Mathematical Society�s Cole Prize in 1982, the Common Wealth Award in 1984, the first National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics in 1988, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1996 (jointly with Andrew Wiles), and the Grande M�daille d�Or (Gold Medal) of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 2000.

Past recipients of the Steele Prize include current Institute faculty members Phillip A. Griffiths (in 1971) and Robert MacPherson (in 2002, jointly with Institute Member Mark Goresky), former faculty members Armand Borel, John W. Milnor, Andr� Weil, and Hassler Whitney, as well as numerous Institute Members.

For more information on the Leroy P. Steele Prizes, visit www.ams.org.