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Media Release – September 27, 2023
Canadian Mathematical Society

DR. HECTOR PASTEN SELECTED AS RECIPIENT OF THE G. DE B. ROBINSON AWARD

OTTAWA, Ontario – The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce Dr. Hector Pasten (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile) as the recipient of the 2023 G. de B. Robinson Award for a paper published in the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin. 

Dr. Pasten is receiving the award for his paper “Arithmetic derivatives through geometry of numbers.”  ( Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, 65(4), 906-923. doi:10.4153/S0008439521000990)

This paper exhibits in concrete terms an analogy between derivatives in function fields, and phenomena in the geometry of numbers. Specifically, this work defines a certain class of arithmetic derivatives on the ring of integers, and shows that the existence of “small” arithmetic derivatives is equivalent to the abc Conjecture of Masser and Oesterlé. A major contribution to the Vojta dictionary between Diophantine geometry and Nevanlinna theory, this paper is sure to be a significant influence on further research in the field.

Dr. Hector Pasten is a Chilean mathematician. His research area is number theory and its connections with logic, complex analysis, and algebraic geometry. He graduated in 2014 from Queen’s University (Canada) under the supervision of Ram Murty and spent the period 2014-2018 at Harvard as a Benjamin Peirce Fellow, with a stay at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (2015-2016). In 2018 he joined the faculty of Mathematics at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, where he is now an associate professor. Pasten’s research has been recognized with several honors such as the Governor General of Canada Academic Gold Medal (2014) the Doctoral Prize of the CMS (2015) and the Mathematical Council of the Americas Prize (2017).


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:

Dr. Termeh Kousha
Executive Director
Canadian Mathematical Society
tkousha@cms.math.ca
or Dr. Patrick Ingram (York)
Chair, Publications Committee
Canadian Mathematical Society
chair-pubc@cms.math.ca