Dr. Bruno Staffa to receive the 2026 CMS Blair Spearman Doctoral Prize

Ottawa, ON – The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce that the 2026 CMS Blair Spearman Doctoral Prize has been awarded to Dr. Bruno Staffa (Rice University) in recognition of his outstanding doctoral work in geometric analysis. Dr. Staffa will receive this award at the 2026 CMS Winter Meeting in Montréal, Québec.

Dr. Staffa completed his PhD at the University of Toronto in 2025 under the supervision of Dr. Yevgeny Liokumovich. He is currently a Lovett Instructor at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His doctoral thesis, “On density and equidistribution of stationary geodesic nets”, represents major progress in Almgren-Pitts min-max theory and its applications.

Dr. Staffa’s research focuses on geometric analysis, with connections to metric geometry and geometric measure theory. The central theme of his thesis is understanding the behavior and distribution of closed geodesics and stationary geodesic nets in Riemannian manifolds. Stationary geodesic nets are geometric objects that generalize closed geodesics and arise naturally in variational problems.

Among his most significant contributions is the resolution of a longstanding program concerning the asymptotic behavior of geometric invariants known as p-widths. Dr. Staffa proved a Weyl law for 1-cycles in all dimensions, extending earlier results that were only known in special cases. This breakthrough required establishing new parametric versions of fundamental geometric inequalities, including the coarea and isoperimetric inequalities, and has important consequences for the global structure of geometric spaces.

Building on these results, Dr. Staffa obtained important density and equidistribution theorems for stationary geodesic nets. These results show that, for generic Riemannian metrics, such geometric objects are not only abundant but become uniformly distributed throughout the manifold. His work generalizes and extends major developments in the study of minimal hypersurfaces to the setting of 1-dimensional cycles, overcoming substantial technical challenges arising from singularities.

Dr. Staffa’s doctoral research produced an exceptional body of work, including five papers forming the core of his thesis. His publications include articles in Selecta Mathematica, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, and the Journal of Topology and Analysis, as well as two substantial preprints on parametric inequalities and the Weyl law for 1-cycles.

“Bruno has exceptional technical mastery, depth, and originality, and his work reflects a level of insight well beyond that expected at the doctoral level.”

In addition to his research accomplishments, Dr. Staffa has received numerous distinctions, including the Georgia Taylor Graduate Award and several University of Toronto fellowships. Furthermore, he represented Argentina at the International Mathematical Olympiad twice, earning an honourable mention in 2011 and a bronze medal in 2012.

The CMS is proud to award Dr. Bruno Staffa with the 2026 CMS Blair Spearman Doctoral Prize. His work is widely regarded as both technically profound and highly original, and is expected to have a lasting impact on geometric analysis.

About the CMS Blair Spearman Doctoral Prize
The CMS Blair Spearman Doctoral Prize recognizes outstanding performance by a doctoral student. The prize is awarded to one or two recipients of a Ph.D. from a Canadian university whose overall performance in graduate school is judged to be the most outstanding. Although the dissertation will be the most important criterion (the impact of the results, the creativity of the work, the quality of exposition, etc.) it will not be the only one. Other publications, activities in support of students and other accomplishments will also be considered.

For more information, visit the CMS Blair Spearman Doctoral Prize page.

About the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS)
The Canadian Mathematical Society (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 meetings, research publications, and the promotion of excellence in mathematics competitions that recognize outstanding student achievements. The CMS is a registered non-profit, charitable organization and depends on grants, funding, and generous donations from sponsors, benefactors and community members to be able to carry out its activities.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Hans Boden (McMaster University) Chair, Doctoral Prize Selection Committee Canadian Mathematical Society boden@mcmaster.ca

or

Dr. Termeh Kousha Executive Director Canadian Mathematical Society tkousha@cms.math.ca