American Mathematical Society awards Steele Prizes to Yakov Sinai, Philip Holmes

Yakov Sinai

Yakov Sinai (Photo courtesy of the Princeton University Department of Mathematics)

Professor of Mathematics Yakov Sinai was awarded the American Mathematical Society (AMS)’s Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, one of the highest distinctions in mathematics. Sinai was honored for his “pivotal role in shaping the theory of dynamical systems and for his groundbreaking contributions to ergodic theory, probability theory, statistical mechanics and mathematical physics,” according to the AMS. The prize recognizes the breadth and depth of the recipient’s mathematical work as well as the recipient’s influence on mathematics through Ph.D. student supervision.

Philip Holmes

Philip Holmes (Photo by James Phillips)

Philip Holmes, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was the co-winner of the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition along with John Guckenheimer for the book Nonlinear Oscillations, Dynamical Systems, and Bifurcations of Vector Fields. The publication helped bridge the various developments of different mathematicians working with dynamical systems in the 1960s and 1970s. According to the official citation for the prize, “Thirty years later this book remains in wide use as a standard text for graduate-level courses in mathematics departments and throughout the sciences and engineering, and Chinese and Russian translations have appeared.”