Endre Szemerédi Selected for Rolf Schock Prize in Mathematics

Endre Szemerédi, Member in the School of Mathematics, has been selected to receive the 2008 Rolf Schock Prize in Mathematics by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. A professor of mathematics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Szemerédi was selected "for his deep and pioneering work from 1975 on arithmetic progressions in subsets of the integers, which has led to great progress and discoveries in several branches of mathematics."  The Rolf Schock Prizes are triennial and are awarded in the fields of logic and philosophy, mathematics, the visual arts and musical arts.  The prizes will be presented at ceremonies in Stockholm on October 22, 2008.

Institute Now Offers Charitable Gift Annuities

Interested individuals can now support the Institute by funding a Charitable Gift Annuity. In this popular charitable giving arrangement, a donor, making a gift of a minimum of $10,000 to the Institute, will receive fixed payments for the life(ves) of one or two individuals. Donors can establish annuities for themselves and/or a spouse, for their parents, or to support a relative or a friend. Donors can elect to have payments start now, or at a date of their choosing. The person receiving the payments must be at least 60 years old when the payments start.

Annuity rates range from 6.5% to 11.3%, depending on the annuitants' ages. A portion of each payment is tax-exempt. Rates will be even higher if the gift is made now and the payments are deferred. There is no limit as to the number of separate annuities that can be established by each donor.  Other benefits include an immediate charitable income tax deduction and capital gains tax deferral if the annuity is funded with appreciated assets such as stock.

To explore how a charitable gift annuity might work for you, please contact Peggy Jackson, Planned Giving Officer, at 609-951-4612 or pjackson@ias.edu. If you wish to calculate the payments yourself, access the Planned Giving Gift Calculator under "Ways to Give" on the Institute's website. All calculations are confidential unless you indicate that you wish to be contacted.

Eric Maskin and Nathan Seiberg Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Eric S. Maskin, Albert O. Hirschman Professor in the School of Social Science and Nathan Seiberg, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, have been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences for their excellence in original scientific research.   Membership in the NAS is one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States. Professors Maskin and Seiberg will be inducted into the Academy next April during its 146th annual meeting in Washington, D.C.  Among the 72 new members and 18 foreign associates are five former Members and Visitors to the Institute, including two from the School of Mathematics, two from the School of Natural Sciences and one from the School of Social Science.

Institute Faculty Member, Trustees Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Joan Wallach Scott, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, has been named a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.   Joining her in the 2008 class of Fellows are Institute Trustees James H. Simons, President and Founder of Renaissance Technologies and former Member in the School of Mathematics, and Charles Simonyi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Intentional Software Corp.  Among the 190 new Fellows and 22 Foreign Honorary Members are 13 former Members and Visitors to the Institute, including five from the School of Mathematics, three each from the School of Social Science and the School of Natural Sciences, and two from the School of Historical Studies. A broad-based membership, comprised of scholars and practitioners from mathematics, physics, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and the arts, public affairs and business, gives the Academy a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary studies and public policy research.  Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members are nominated and elected to the Academy by current members.  The 2008 class will be inducted on October 11 at ceremonies held at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Nima Arkani-Hamed, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, has been named the recipient of the 2008 Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Physics, presented by Tel Aviv University.  This year's research field was Beyond the Standard Model in the LHC Era. 

The Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in the Physical Sciences, awarded at Tel-Aviv University, has been established through the generosity of Dr. Raymond and Mrs. Beverly Sackler.  It is awarded alternatively in the fields of Physics and Chemistry to an outstanding scientist who is not older than forty-two.  The prize is intended to encourage dedication to science, originality, and excellence by awarding outstanding young scientists. 

Arkani-Hamed was cited for his "novel, deep and highly influential contributions to new paradigms for physics beyond the Standard Model at the TeV energy scale, especially the ideas of large extra dimensions and of the large hierarchy of strengths of fundamental forces in Nature, including gravity; supersymmetry model-building; theories of flavor and of neutrino masses; and models of the cosmological constant." 

Arkani-Hamed, who joined the Faculty at the Institute in January 2008, will be honored at the Tel Aviv University's Board of Governors' annual meeting in May.  The Sackler Prize in Physics was first awarded in 2000, when School of Natural Sciences Professor Juan Maldacena was one of two recipients in the research field of Theoretical High Energy Physics.