International Congress of Mathematicians 2018: Administration of Travel Grants for US Participants

American Mathematical Society, Providence RI

Investigators

Abstract

The quadrennial International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on August 1-9, 2018. Between 5,000 and 6,000 mathematical scientists, teachers, students, and others from around the world will share new results of research, directions of future investigation, applications, ideas for pedagogy, and methodologies for disseminating and archiving mathematical knowledge. Participants from the United States, who will contribute to the activities through presentation of their research to the worldwide mathematical community, and they will also enrich the nation's STEM infrastructure through activities at the Congress with their counterparts from abroad. As a world leader in mathematical research, the US sustains this position by supporting basic research, fostering activities that disseminate the results of this work, and enabling researchers to benefit from ideas and collaborations with researchers in other countries. In the mathematical sciences, research is reliant on in-person interactions, the work is increasingly collaborative, and the efforts are often international in scope. Activities of US participants at ICM 2018 contribute directly to the vitality of the US's knowledge-based economy, and from a technical and diplomatic point of view they support national security. This National Science Foundation award would enable the American mathematical Society to provide substantial support for approximately ninety US-based mathematicians to participate in the Congress. Recommendations for awards will be made by a panel of mathematicians drawn from among the members of several US-based professional organizations focused in the mathematical sciences. Mathematicians of all career stages are welcome to apply, women and members of underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply, and early-career applicants will receive priority for funding. Since the 1950s, the ICM has been held under the auspices of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a consortium of mathematics societies from more than eighty member nations, including the US. For the 2018 Congress the IMU's Program Committee has set nineteen sections on topics of current research: Logic and Foundations, Algebra, Number Theory, Algebraic and Complex Geometry, Geometry, Topology, Lie Theory and Generalizations, Analysis and Operator Algebras, Dynamical Systems and Ordinary Differential Equations, Partial Differential Equations, Mathematical Physics, Probability and Statistics, Combinatorics, Mathematical Aspects of Computer Science, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Control Theory and Optimization, Mathematics in Science and Technology, Mathematics Education and Popularization of Mathematics, and History of Mathematics. Participants in the Congress will have opportunities in these sections to hear many invited lectures, visit poster sessions, and interact with mathematicians engaged in similar research. A number of the invited speakers will have support from the ICM travel grant program. In addition to section lectures, the ICM incorporates the Emmy Noether and Abel Lectures and twenty stand-alone plenary lectures on recent major developments. The Congress is also the occasion for conferring some of the most prestigious awards in the mathematical sciences: the Fields Medal, Nevanlinna Prize, Gauss Prize, Chern Medal Award, and Leelavati Prize. All of these recognize singular achievements of individuals involved in in the forefront of mathematical research. Since its inception in 1897 in Zurich, the ICM has been a significant impetus to international cooperation in mathematical research, and it is often a historic occasion for the mathematical community and the wider world. Information about ICM 2018 can be found at http://www.icm2018.org/portal/en/home/.