Catalin Badea, Vincent Devinck, and Sophie Grivaux to Receive the 2021 G. de B. Robinson Award

OTTAWA, ON – The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce that Dr. Catalin Badea, Dr. Vincent Devinck, and Dr. Sophie Grivaux are the recipients of the 2021 G. de B. Robinson Award for papers published in the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin in 2020.

The recipients are receiving the award for their joint paper “Escaping a Neighborhood along a Prescribed Sequence in Lie Groups and Banach Algebras” (Canadian Mathematical Bulletin; 63(3), 2020 pp.  484-505.)

The paper makes significant connections between many fields of analysis and algebra. It concerns a class of sequences of integers with remarkable properties, the so-called Jamison sequences, and provides various equivalent characterizations of Jamison sequences in terms of Lie groups, normed algebras, and Hilbert space operators. This work is a great example of ‘hard analysis’. The authors exploit all the above-mentioned theories to provide a thorough description of Jamison sequences, a topic important by itself, and some of their applications.

Dr. Catalin Badea studied Mathematics for three years at the University of Bucharest in his native Romania and then continued his studies in France, at University Paris-Sud, Orsay (now University Paris-Saclay). He earned his PhD in 1995 under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Kahane. Badea is currently Full Professor at University of Lille. He has published more than sixty papers, supervised eight PhD students, taught a variety of courses and did administrative and service work.

Dr. Vincent Devinck was born in Arras (Northern France) in 1985. In 2008, he passed the “Agrégation” in Mathematics (a high-level competitive examination for recruiting teachers in France). He wrote his PhD thesis under the supervision of Catalin Badea and Sophie Grivaux, and defended his dissertation at Lille University in 2012. He has since been teaching “preparatory courses” (in classes designed to prepare high-flying students for the “grandes écoles” entrance exams) in selective postgraduate (i.e. post-“Baccalauréat”) classes (MPSI class, currently at Lycée Mariette in Boulogne-sur-Mer). He is also an associate researcher at Artois University (Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Lens).

Dr. Sophie Grivaux is a senior researcher at CNRS, and currently works at the Laboratoire Paul Painlevé in Lille, France. She joined CNRS in 2004 after completing her PhD at the Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu in Paris under the supervision of Gilles Godefroy. Her mathematical interests concern various aspects of functional analysis and dynamical systems, and she is especially interested in problems which lie at the crossroad of these two topics.

About the G. de B. Robinson Award

The G. de B. Robinson Award is named for Gilbert de Beauregard Robinson, the third president of the CMS. Robinson, along with H.S.M. Coxeter, established the Canadian Journal of Mathematics (CJM) and acted as the managing editor for 30 years. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the CJM or the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin (CMB).

About the Canadian Mathematical Society

The CMS is the main national organization whose goal is to promote and advance the discovery, learning and application of mathematics.  The Society’s activities cover the whole spectrum of mathematics including scientific meetings, research publications, and the promotion of excellence in mathematics competitions that recognize outstanding student achievements.

For more information please contact:

Javad Mashreghi (Laval)
President
Canadian Mathematical Society
president@cms.math.ca