Dr. Jacques Hurtubise Receives 2022 David Borwein Distinguished Career Award

OTTAWA, Ontario — The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce that Dr. Jacques Hurtubise (McGill) has been named the recipient of the 2022 David Borwein Distinguished Career Award for his exceptional, continued, and broad contributions to mathematics. Dr. Hurtubise will receive his award and present a Prize Lecture at the upcoming CMS Winter meeting in Toronto, Ontario (December 2-5, 2022).

Awarded every four years, the David Borwein Distinguished Career Award is, by definition, reserved for those individuals who have made exceptional, broad, and continued contributions to Canadian mathematics.

Dr. Jacques Hurtubise is one of Canada’s most eminent research mathematicians. Since the start of his research career as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Jacques has made contributions of outstanding caliber to the subjects in which he has worked. Dr. Hurtubise has thus gained worldwide recognition for his seminal work on the topology of the moduli spaces of instantons, as well as on integrable systems. His first-rate results have appeared in top mathematics journals, such as the Annals of Mathematics, Acta Mathematica, and the Duke Mathematical Journal, and have earned him several prestigious prizes and lectureships, including the CMS Coxeter-James Prize, a plenary talk at the annual meeting of the AMS, an AMS Centennial Fellowship–of which he was the first Canadian recipient–, election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, as an inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and, most recently, as an inaugural Fellow of the Canadian Mathematical Society.

Jacques Hurtubise is a member of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University, of which he was Chair from 2009 to 2015 and from 2019 to 2022. After obtaining his Doctorate as a Rhodes Scholar in 1982 from Oxford University, he taught for five years at the Université du Québec à Montréal, before moving to McGill in 1988. From 1996 to 2003 he served as Deputy Director, then Director, of the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques. He has served the CMS in several roles over the years, notably as President from 2010 to 2012.

Jacques Hurtubise has taken on a leadership role both within and outside of the mathematical community. He has had a deep influence as a teacher and mentor of young mathematicians, having trained ten Ph.D. students, nineteen post-doctoral Fellows and nine Master’s students, most of whom have moved on to successful academic careers of their own. A five-day conference in honour of Jacques’ 60th birthday, which was hosted by the CRM in August of 2017, brought together a constellation of mathematicians from around the world whose research has been influenced and inspired by Jacques’ work.

One of the qualities that his colleagues most admire about Jacques is his unswerving, selfless
devotion to the greater good. Jacques always places the interests of his academic unit, university,
and professional community well before his own.

In summary, Jacques’ leadership is epitomized by his remarkable human qualities coupled with his charisma and scientific vision. They are the main reasons why he is unanimously admired by the colleagues whose lives and careers have been affected during his stewardship of the CRM, the McGill Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and the Canadian Mathematical Society.

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About the David Borwein Distinguished Career Award

The David Borwein Distinguished Career Award is named for David Borwein, a distinguished mathematician and former CMS President. The award was established in 2004 to recognize individuals who have made a sustained outstanding contribution to the advancement of mathematics. The recipient receives a unique sculpture established by the Borwein family.

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About the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS)

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.

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For more information, please contact:

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

or

Dr. David Pike President Canadian Mathematical Society president@cms.math.ca