Four Princeton researchers receive inaugural Simons Investigators award

Simons Awardees

Princeton University faculty members were selected as inaugural Simons Investigators: Clockwise from top left: Frans Pretorius, Manjul Bhargava, Sanjeev Aurora and Amit Singer.

Princeton University faculty members were selected in 2012 as four of 21 inaugural Simons Investigators, a prestigious program aimed at supporting research by mathematicians, theoretical physicists and theoretical computer scientists. Each faculty member will receive an initial five-year, $500,000 grant from the New York-based Simons Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. Recipients of the award did not know they were being considered.

The four Princeton awardees were:

  • Manjul Bhargava, the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics, who was honored in mathematics for his work in the field of algebraic number theory and the geometry of numbers
  • Amit Singer, an associate professor of mathematics and the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, who was honored in mathematics for contributions to a variety of problems in applied mathematics;
  • Sanjeev Arora, the Charles C. Fitzmorris Professor in Computer Science, who was honored in computer science for his work in theoretical computer science;
  • Frans Pretorius, a professor of physics, who was honored in physics for seminal contributions to the numerical solution of the equations of general relativity.

The award honors the foundation’s chairman, James Simons, a renowned mathematician and investment strategist whose work on measurements known as Chern-Simons invariants has been highly influential in theoretical physics.