Ukrainian mathematician wins Wolf Prize for academic breakthrough

A member of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences has received a prestigious, $100,000 mathematics award from an Israeli foundation this week.

Ukrainian-American Vladimir Drinfeld, 64, and his academic co-author Alexander Beilinson got the award from the Israeli Wolf Foundation, NAN Ukraine has reported.

The Wolf Foundation gives out annual awards for extraordinary achievement in different areas, while its math prize is considered one of the most prestigious honors in mathematics. Many Wolf’s prize winners go on to receive Nobel prizes later on.

The scientists, who currently work at the University of Chicago, received the honor for innovative work in algebraic geometry, which is important for the development of theoretical physics and for string theory in particular.

The Israeli President Reuven Rivlin will award the winners in Jerusalem.

Drinfeld was born in Kharkiv, some 500 kilometers east of Kyiv, where he worked for nine years at the Verkin Institute for Low-Temperature Physics and Engineering.

The scientist was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990, which is dubbed the Nobel Prize for mathematicians. In 2016, Drinfeld was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He moved to the United States in 1999.

Drinfeld has greatly contributed to the development of contemporary math, introducing theories that were later named after him.

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