New Department Prize Recognizes Excellence in Postdoctoral Research
Romain Tessera of the CNRS at the ?cole Normale Sup?rieure in Lyon is the recipient of the first Samir Aldroubi and Amira Azhari Prize for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research ? a new award announced by the Department of Mathematics.
The Aldroubi-Azhari Prize will be awarded every two years to recognize the research achievements of current and recent postdoctoral fellows in the department. It was established by Mathematics Professor Akram Aldroubi in honor of his parents, Samir Aldroubi and Amira Azhari.
Samir Aldroubi was a Professor of Philosophy and Psychology and Dean at the University of Damascus. He later moved to Abu Dhabi and became the General Director of the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, United Arab Emirates. He died in 2007.
Amira Azhari is a retired Professor of Psychology. She taught at the Department of Psychology and Education at the University of Damascus, Syria, and later worked at the Ministry of Education of the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi, where she was the Director of Curriculum Development for Preschools. She currently lives in Damascus, Syria.
Candidates for the award are nominated by the faculty of the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics, and the recipient is selected by a departmental committee. The chosen mathematician receives $1,000 and is invited to Vanderbilt to deliver a mathematics colloquium reflecting his or her research interests.
The recipient of the 2010 award, Romain Tessera, is a researcher at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) in Lyon, France. His research interests are in the areas of geometric group theory and analysis on metric spaces. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Cergy-Pontoise in France and the University of Neuch?tel in Switzerland in 2006. He was a postdoc in the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics from 2006 to 2009.
“Romain Tessera is one of the most dynamic and original young mathematicians I have ever met,” says Mike Mihalik, chair of the Aldroubi-Azhari Award Selection Committee. “He easily navigates between seemingly unrelated types of mainstream mathematical research, leaving behind impressive new results and colleagues who rave about his originality and creativity. His accomplishments set a high bar for the postdocs who will compete for the Aldroubi-Azhari prize in the years to come.”
Tessera will be recognized at an award ceremony March 30, after which he will present a special colloquium entitled “The Large-scale Geometry of Lie Groups.”