Chern Medal Award goes to Masaki Kashiwara of RIMS (2 August 2018)

On 2 August, Dr Masaki Kashiwara, a specially appointed professor at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS) and KyotoU professor emeritus, received the Chern Medal Award from the International Mathematical Union (IMU).

Established in 2010, the quadrennial award recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement in the field of mathematics, and is presented at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM). The 2018 ICM took place 1–9 August in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Professor Kawashima, the third Medalist, spoke about the award at a press conference held on the first day (2 August Japan time).

The award is given to a single individual, and consists of a cash prize of 250,000 US dollars, and a donation of the same amount to one or more research organizations nominated by the honoree. Dr Kashiwaha named RIMS as the donation's sole recipient.

To quote from his 2018 Kyoto Prize citation, Kashiwara "established the theory of D-modules, thereby playing a decisive role in the creation and development of algebraic analysis", and "his numerous achievements — including the establishment of the Riemann-Hilbert correspondence, its application to representation theory, and construction of crystal basis theory — have exerted great influence on various fields of mathematics and contributed strongly to their development".

It is anticipated that his half a century of original work will continue to have a profound impact on the development of mathematical sciences for years to come.