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MSC Members’ News

Tsinghua University Mathematical Sciences Center Newsletter

1212Issue Winter 2013

This newsletter highlights new members and selected activities at MSC. In autumn 2013, the MSC organized four Distinguished Lecture Series. Meanwhile, S. T. Yau High School Sciences Awards and the fourth conference of Tsinghua Sanya International Mathematics Forum were held successfully. For more information about the MSC, please visit http://msc.tsinghua.edu.cn/.

Dr. Ke Deng Awarded Fellowship of the Youth Thousand-Talents ProgramMSC member Dr. Ke Deng was awarded

fellowship of the Youth Thousand-Talents program of 2013. Dr. Deng received PhD degree in statistics from Peking University in 2008. He worked as Post-Doc Fellow and Research Associate in the Statistics Department of Harvard University from 2008 to 2013, and joined MSC in September of 2013. Dr. Deng’s research interests include Bayesian statistics, statistics computation, bioinformatics and text mining. In recent years, Dr. Deng has published papers in many top journals such as JRSS-B, JASA, Statistics in Medicine, Bioinformatics, and IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

In MSC, Dr. Deng continues to work on statistics methodology and applications, and built up local and international collaborations with both academic institutes as well as industries. In Oct. 2103, Dr. Deng organized the 2013 Harvard-Radcliffe Exploratory Workshop on Text Mining in Literary Chinese with the supports from Prof. Jun S. Liu (Professor of statistics, Harvard University) and Prof. Peter K. Bol (Vice Provost for Advances in

Learning & Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University). The workshop aims to explore the opportunities and challenges in analyzing all available historical documents cumulated in China’s history with statistical inference and text mining tools. Many well-respected experts from USA, Taiwan and mainland of China participated in the workshop, which improved the communication among statisticians, computer scientists and historians, and helped to push forward the study on a new inter-disciplinary area. On Dec, 2013, invited by the Zhao Center for Asian Study, Dr. Deng gave an invited talk in Rice University on his recent work on text analysis.

Dr. Deng also participated in collaborative studies on food security administration (with General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine), medical data analysis (with Analysis Group & Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine) and meta-material design (with Chenzhen Kuang-Chi Institute of Advanced Technology).

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Since January 2014, six faculty members of the Department of Mathematical Sciences of Tsinghua University will join the MSC’s membership for a two-year term.

Associate Professsor Zhuo Chen got his PhD from Peking University in 2004, and was post-doctors in CNU, PKU and PSU. He joined Tsinghua University in 2009. His main research interests lie at the crossroads of non-commutative geometry, Poisson geometry and mathematical physics. Recently, his research focuses on Lie groupoids, Lie algebroids, Courant algebroids, homotopy algebras (L-infty, A-infty, Leibniz-infty etc.), Atyiah classes, Lie 2-groups and their applications to Poisson geometry and mathematical physics.

Associate Professor Xiaoli Hang graduated from Zhejiang University in 2001 and then entered the graduate program in the institute of Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She got her PhD degree in 2006. During this time, she visited Max Planck Institute of Leipzig and ICTP of Italy. She worked in ICTP from 2006 to 2008 as a postdoctoral fellow. After returning to China, she has been working in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University. Her research area is geometry and analysis.

Associate Professor Hui Ma obtained her PhD from Peking University in 2000. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Tsinghua University from 2000 to 2002, then as a visiting assistant Professor in University of Massachusetts, Amherst from 2002 to 2004. She has been working in Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University since June 2004. From Sept. 2008 to Sept. 2009 she was a visiting scholar in Osaka City University. Her main research area is in differential geometry, specially geometry of Lagrangian submanifolds and applications of integrable systems and Lie theory.

Associate Professor Liping Zhang got her PhD from the Academy of Mathematics and System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science in 2001. She majored in Operations Research and Control Theory. She worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University from March 2001 to March 2003. She has been working in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University since March 2003. In 2007, She was a visiting associate professor in National Cheng Kung University. She was also a research fellow in Department of Applied Mathematics, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on April 2010 and January 2013. Prof. Zhang’s research area is optimization and tensor computation. She has done excellent research work on equilibrium programming, semi-infinity programming and eigenvalue problems of tensors.

Jointly-appointed members of MSC and Math Department

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The Mathematical Sciences Center (MSC) of Tsinghua University invites applications for the Distinguished Professorship, Professorship, Associate Professorship, Assistant Professorship (tenure-track) in the full spectrum of mathematical sciences: ranging from pure mathematics, applied PDE, computational mathematics to statistics. The current annual salary range is between 0.15-1.0 million RMB. Salary will be determined by applicants' qualification. Strong promise/track record in research and teaching are required. Completed applications must be electronically submitted, and must contain curriculum vitae, research statement, teaching statement, selected reprints and/or preprints, three reference letters on academic research and one reference letter on teaching, sent electronically to msc-recruitment@math.tsinghua.edu.cn

Mathematical Sciences Center will hire a substantial number of post-doctorate fellows in the full spectrum of mathematical sciences. New and recent PhDs are encouraged for this position.

Appointment for post-doctorate fellowship of MSC is for two-years, and renewable for the third for exceptional cases. Salary and compensation package are determined by qualification, accomplishment, and experience. MSC offers very competitive packages.

Completed applications must contain curriculum vitae, research statement, teaching statement, selected reprints and/or preprints, three reference letters, sent electronically to msc-recruitment@math.tsinghua.edu.cn

Recruitment

Dr. Junqing Chen, assistant professor of Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University, received the B. S. degree from Peking University in 2002 and PhD degree from Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2007. He first worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Chinese University of Hong Kong from July 2007 to July 2008. Since July 2008, he has been with the Department of Mathematical Sciences in Tsinghua University as an assistant professor. Dr. Chen’s research interests include numerical analysis, scientific computing for electromagnetism and inverse problems.

Dr. Yan-Hui Qu, assistant professor of Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University. He entered the department of mathematics, Wuhan University in 1995 and received bachelor degree in 1999, master degree in 2002. He entered the department of mathematics, Tsinghua University in 2002 and received doctor degree in 2006. Since 2008, he is an assistant professor of Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University. From November 2008 to March 2010, he did a post-doctor project at INRIA (Institut national de recherche en informatiqueet en automatique) in France. From September 2012 to January 2013, he was a visiting researcher in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research domains include fractal geometry, dynamical systems and discrete Schrodinger operator. Currently he focuses on applying the theory of fractal geometry and dynamical systems to study the spectral property of the discrete Schrodinger operator. He is supported by NSFC 11201256.

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Mathematical Sciences Center of Tsinghua University held four Distinguished Lecture Series in autumn 2013. After Dr. Yitang Zhang and Prof. Peter Bickel given Tsinghua University Distinguished Lecture in August and September 2013, Prof. David O. Siegmund and Prof. Laurent Lafforgue also visited MSC and delivered Pao-Lu Hsu Distinguished Lecture and Loo-Keng Hua Distinguished Lecture at the end of October and early November respectively.

Professor David Siegmund received his doctorate degree in statistics from Columbia University in 1966. He is currently a professor of Stanford University, member of U. S. National Academy of Sciences, fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He focuses his research on statistical problems that arise in concrete scientific applications and require novel probability theory for their resolution.

Professor David Siegmund visited MSC from October 14 to October 26, and gave four lectures on Oct.16/18/23/25, entitled: The Intersection of Operations Research, Kinetic Theory, and Genetics; Change-point Detection; Detecting Local Signals in Random Fields; Detection of Genomic Signals by Resequencing.

His lectures attracted students and professors from Tsinghua University, Peking University and other universities.

Professor Laurent Lafforgue is a French mathematician, Fields Medalist, member of French Academy of Sciences. Currently he is a research director of CNRS, detached as permanent professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (I.H.E.S.). He has made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for the automorphism group of a function field. The crucial contribution by Lafforgue to solve this question is the construction of compactifications of certain moduli stacks of Shtukas. The monumental proof is the result of more than six years of concentrated efforts.

Prof. Laurent Lafforgue gave Loo-Keng Hua Distinguished Lecture on Non linear Fourier transforms and Poisson formulas on reductive Lie groups in November. About one hundred students and professors from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Capital Normal University attended his lecture.Prof. Eduard Looijenga and Prof. Laurent Lafforgue

Photo by Yuchan Shang

2013 Tsinghua University Distinguished Lectures

News & Events

Prof. David Siegmund giving speech

Photo by Yuchan Shang

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As an important academic component of the S. T. Yau High School Sciences Awards program, Nobel laureate in Physics, Professor David J. Gross was invited to give a talk at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences on December 14, 2013. The title of his talk is The Outlook of Fundamental Physics. Director of Mathematical Sciences Center of Tsinghua University, Prof S. T. Yau chaired his talk. Over 400 people attended the talk. They included scholars of related areas, overseas students and graduate students, and many high school students.

Professor David Gross started his talk from the Standard Model and described it as an incredible success. Despite the great achievements of the Standard Model, David Gross mentioned that there were still many pending problems in the field of fundamental physics, such as the problems regarding dark matter, the weight of neutrinos, baryon asymmetry and accelerated expansion of the universe. As for the future of fundamental physics, David Gross pointed

out that it is under great controversy whether the existence of supersymmetry particle can be verified and whether the dark matter can be detected. In addition, David Gross introduced some theories and findings of fundamental physics, including the quantum field theory, the supersymmetric theory and the string theory. He highlighted that “we are exploring” in the area of fundamental physics despite of unavoidable difficulties and we should have faith in its future development.

After Prof Gross’ talk, executive vice president of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Yueliang Wu hosted a panel discussion. David J. Gross, Shing-Tung Yau, Qikun Xue, Yifang Wang, Yueliang Wu discussed with participants about problems in fundamental physics and related subjects. In an enthusiastic atmosphere, some high school students raised questions including the dimensions in string theory and the determination of dark matter.

Panel Discussion From Left to Right: Yifang Wang, Qikun Xue, David J. Gross, Shing-Tung Yau, Yueliang Wu

Photo by Yat-Sun Poon

Outlook of Fundamental PhysicsAn Invited Talk by Nobel Laureate David Gross

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In the evening of December 15, theoretical physicist and superstring theorist Brian Greene and Fields Medalist, the director of Mathematical Sciences Center of Tsinghua University, Shing-Tung Yau were invited to give talks at the Tsinghua Forum.

In his talk on Realize Einstein’s Dream,the study of unified field theory, Professor Greene

explained that Einstein’s theory of relativity and quantum mechanics are the two pillars of modern physics which model the large-scale and small-scale structure of the universe respectively. Einstein devoted his last thirty years looking for a so-called “unified theory”, a theory which can describe natural forces in a single all - embracing harmonic structure. In the past half

century, a growing number of physicists engaged in building a knowledge system of cosmology and now they finally find that superstring theory can describes all phenomena in principle.

Professor Greene indicated that superstring is amethod to describe the universe at the most basic level, which unifies the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics in a same framework. Prof. Greene demonstrated issues related to superstring theory, standard model of cosmology and new reflection of universe after the emergence of string theory through vivid videos and analogies.

In his talk, Professor Shing-Tung Yau presented the key elements and motivation in his book about history of the Harvard mathematics department. In this book, he explored lives of the pioneers in the mathematics department of Harvard University. Some of

these mathematicians changed the direction of mathematics development throughout the world.

Prof. Yau explained that a good mathematician needs to know how the important concept in mathematics developed. The evolution of these concepts is full of vitality, just as new born babies growing up. Once we understand the motivation of development of mathematics, we can better understand development of today’s math. The development of Harvard Mathematics Department provides a valuable reference.

Prof. Brian Greene giving speech

Photo by Yuchan Shang

Prof. Shing-Tung Yau giving speech

Photo by Yuchan Shang

Prof. Brian Greene and Prof. Shing-Tung Yau

Photo by Yuchan Shang

Brian Greene and Shing-Tung Yau Gave Talks at Tsinghua Forum

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Prof. Yau introduced several mathematicians who have made outstanding contribution to Harvard Mathematics Department. Prof. Yau said, in the late 19th century, a large number of individual donations, healthy competition among top universities, professors and students dedicating efforts on original research, friendly academic exchange atmosphere, multi-ethnic society encouraging healthy academic competition, all contribute the splendid achievement of Harvard Mathematics Department.

Given the foundation and experience of five years of S. T. Yau High School Mathematics Awards, Prof Yau and Taikang Life co-initiated the S. T. Yau High School Sciences Awards program this year. This program now consists of Mathematics and Physics. It is hopeful that other subjects may be added to the list. After a presentation in front of their respective international panels on Dec 15, 2013, Yuanqi Zhang from the St. Gregory College Preparatory School, USA, stood out with her paper on 3D Surface Fabrication using Conformal Geometry and won the gold medal of this year’s S. T. Yau High School Mathematics Awards. As for the S. T. Yau High School Physics Awards, the winner goes to Kaijie Chen and Wenxin Lai

from Xiamen Foreign Languages School. The topic of their outstanding thesis is Paper Plane Aerodynamics. There are also 2 silver medals, 3 bronze medals and 4 honorable mentions established in the Physics Awards, along with 2 silver medals, 4 bronze medals, 4 honorable mentions and 8 consolation awards established in the Mathematics Awards. Guangdong Guangya High School, Nanjing Foreign Languages School, No.2 High School of East China Normal University and the High School Attached to Tsinghua University were given the Organization Awards.

In the afternoon of December 16, 2013, the Awards Ceremony of the Inauguration S. T. Yau High School Sciences Awards was held in the

Presentation of Physics gold award

From Left to right: BinglinGu, Shing-Tung Yau, Kaijie Chen, Wenxin Lai, David Gross, Yongchang Qian, Xichun Qiu

Photo by Yuchan Shang

Prof. Shing-Tung Yau signing book after the reporthis talk

Photo by Yuchan Shang

The Inauguration S. T. Yau High School Sciences Awards

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Presentation of Mathematics gold award From Left to right: Binglin Gu, Shing-Tung Yau, Yuanqi Zhang, Xichun Qiu

Photo by Yuchan Shang

Reception Hall of Tsinghua University. Vice President of Tsinghua University, Qikun

Xue, addressed the ceremony. On behalf of Tsinghua University, Qikun Xue congratulated the awardees, congratulated Shing-Tung Yau on his appointment as Physics Professor of Harvard University and expressed his heartfelt gratitude for Shing-Tung Yau’s contribution to basic sciences and training of top-notch innovative talents. He thanked the Taikang Life Insurance Company for their support. In addition, Qikun Xue encouraged high school students to stay curious and hungry about the world of science, make strenuous effort to explore and research, continually improve their ability of innovative thinking and contribute to human progress and scientific advancement.

Shing-Tung Yau shared a story of his son being diligent in studies to encourage young students to maintain their enthusiasm for basic sciences research and work assiduously. Shing-Tung Yau also showed that he would do all he can to provide a better platform for promoting innovative talents.

The Inauguration S. T. Yau High School Sciences Awards was sponsored by Professor Shing-Tung Yau and Taikang Life Insurance Co., Ltd, co-organizered by Mathematical Sciences

Center, Tsinghua University; Department of Physics, Tsinghua University; Center of Mathematical Sciences, Zhejiang University; International College of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; Morningside Center of Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics China at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Over 400 teams from almost 200 high schools entered for the Mathematics Awards and approximately 60 teams from 28 high schools competed for the Physics Awards. Among them, 13 teams came from foreign countries including USA, Singapore, and Japan. During the competit ion, over 100 distinguished mathematicians and physicists from all over the world participated in the mentorships and the evaluation process. These scientists include Nobel laureate in physics, professor of University of California, Santa Barbara David Gross, professor of Columbia University Brian Greene, professor of Max-Planck Institution of Physics of Complex Systems Peter Fulde and professor of Princeton University Nima Arkani-Hamed. Professor Shing-Tung Yau and Professor Binglin Gu co-chaired the advisory committee of the S. T. Yau High School Physics Awards.

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Inauguration Ceremony

of the TSIMF Facility

From left to right:

Jining Chen, Shing-

Tung Yau, Sixian

Jiang,Lu Wang

Photo by Yuchan Shang

On December 18, the inauguration ceremony for the TSIMF facility building was held in Sanya. CPPCC Vice Chairman Yuan Chen sent a congratulatory letter. President of Tsinghua University Jining Chen, Fields Medalist, Professor of Harvard University Shing-Tung Yau, the Hainan Provincial Party Committee, Party Secretary of Sanya Municipal People’s Government Sixian Jiang, the chancellor of UCSB Henry Tzu-Yow Yang, Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences Lo Yang gave speech at the meeting. Professor Shiu-Yuen Cheng introduced the building of TSIMF facility and the development of Mathematics Sciences Center of Tsinghua University.

In the ceremony, Mr. Weixue Shi, a Tsinghua Alumni, who donated the land and all the facilities of TSIMF, presenting a key of TSIMF to President Jining Chen and Professor Shing-Tung Yau. Jining Chen, Shing-Tung Yau, Sixian Jiang and Assistant deputy governor of Hainan Province Lu Wang jointly unveiled the venue. Professors David Gross of UCSB, Eric Maskin of Harvard University, James Mirrlees of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Steven Smale of the City University of Hong Kong, Bảo-Châu Ngô of the University of Chicago, and one hundred and eighty physicists, mathematician, economists, business leaders attended the opening ceremony.

The Master Lectures on Mathematics of 2013 and workshops was held from December 18-22. The master lecturers this year were delivered by Shing-Tung Yau, Joseph Bernstein, Bảo-Châu Ngô, Yakov G. Sinai, and Clifford Taubes. As

an extension of a lecture series of each master, four workshops consisting of expert speakers from around the world were held. In addition, to facilitate interaction among mathematicians and physicists, the TSIMF hosted a workshop on Topological Materials. Principal speakers included Professor of Stanford University Shoucheng Zhang and Professor of Tsinghua Unversity Qikun Xue.

Tsinghua Sanya International Mathematics Forum is expected to become a world-class international conference center. It will serve as an international hub for mathematicians and mathematical scientists to dissimilate latest results and to develop newest ideas and make contributions to nurturing and to educating younger generations including students and postdocs. TSIMF will provide a platform for international cooperation to explore new directions, develop new methods in mathematical sciences and raise the level of mathematics research in China. It will be constructed as a world-class mathematics forum for academic research and exchanges.

TSIMF's buildings and facilities are built on a 140-acre land located at Phoenix Hill of Phoenix Township of Sanya City. It is surrounded by pristine environment. The total square footage of all the facilities is over 28,000 square meters that includes state-of the art conference facilities (over 9,000 square meter) to hold two international workshops simultaneously, a large library, a guest house with 170 large guest rooms and the associated catering facilities, an Olympic size swimming pool, two tennis courts and other

The Fourth Conference of Tsinghua Sanya International Mathematics Forum andInauguration Ceremony for the TSIMF Facility

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Professor Leon Simon will Visit MSC

Since the Center’s establishment, many renowned experts became frequent visitors of MSC. Among them are Prof. Richard Hamilton of Columbia University, Prof. Richard Schoen of Stanford University. Beginning this year, Leon Simon, Professor of Stanford University, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society and Australian Academy of Science, will visit MSC two-three months each year in the next five years. With the effort of Professor Richard Hamilton, Richard Schoen, Leon Simon and Professor Shing-Tung Yau, Mathematical Sciences Center will build an international team of leading geometrical analysts.

In 2014, Professor Leon Simon will visit MSC from February 23 to April 25, and will deliver an introductory course in Geometric Measure Theory.

For more information, please refer to http://msc.tsinghua.edu.cn/

Tsinghua University Chia-Chiao LinDistinguished Lecture

Professor Joel Smoller of University of Michigan will visit MSC from May 3 to 10, and give the Chia-Chiao Lin Distinguished Lecture at MSC.

Joel Smoller received his PhD from Purdue University, and has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan ever since. He has held visiting appointments at a wide variety of places, including the Courant Institute, the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, and the University of Paris. Recently he held the Rothschild Professorship at Cambridge University. He has worked on a diverse group of problems, including shock wave theory, symmetry breaking bifurcations, Yang-Mills equations, Dirac equations, and general relativity.

For detailed information, please refer to http://msc.tsinghua.edu.cn/

The report of the fourth conference of TSIMF Photo by Jie Yuan

recreational facilities.The forum will become a similar international

comprehensive mathematical center like Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery or Germany Oberwolfach Mathematics Research Center. There will be around 50 international academic exchange projects launched at the TSIMF permanent site every year.

The forum will provide good environment for world-class mathematicians to conduct academic exchanges and researches on mathematics and related studies, and will play a pivotal role in the future development of mathematics.

To propose a program at TSIMF, please visit our website: http://msc.tsinghua.edu.cn/sanya/propose.aspx

Upcoming Activity

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Photo by Shiu-Yuen Cheng, Yuchan Shang, Jie Yuan

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Managing editor: Yuchan ShangEditors: Yat-Sun Poon Ying Yang Fei Li

Mathematical Sciences Center, Tsinghua UniversityRoom 131, Jin Chun Yuan West Bldg., Tsinghua UniversityHaidian Dist., Beijing 100084, ChinaTel: 010-62773561http://msc.tsinghua.edu.cn