The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) has selected Leah Keshet as the winner of the 2003 Krieger-Nelson Prize, Ram Murty the winner of the 2003 Jeffery-Williams Prize, and Lisa Jeffrey as the winner of the 2002 Coxeter-James Prize.

The Krieger-Nelson Prize recognizes outstanding research by a female mathematician.

Dr. Leah Keshet obtained her B.Sc. from Dalhousie University in 1974, and her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute in 1982. Prior to joining the University of British Columbia in 1989, she was a faculty member at Duke University.

Leah Keshet attained the rank of full professor in 1995 and is Director of the MITACS project "Biomedical Models of Cellular and Physiological Systems in Health and Disease", which uses mathematical modelling and analysis for various biomedical problems. She was an invited plenary speaker at the 2000 International Congress of Applied Mathematics in Edinburgh.

Leah Keshet is in the front rank of theoretical biologists world-wide. She has an excellent ability to abstract the sense of a biological problem into a well-posed mathematical problem suitable for analysis and modelling. She has investigated new and challenging biological problems involving a diversity of mathematical techniques. She uses all types of methods, from rigorous analysis to simulations.

Her research has greatly influenced people in thinking about biological phenomena in a mathematical way. She has also written what is regarded as the best textbook on biological modelling. It has been called "a remarkable demonstration of her deep understanding of a staggering range of problems in mathematical biology.

Dr. Leah Keshet will present the 2003 Krieger-Nelson Prize Lecture at the University of Alberta in June 2003.

The Jeffery-Williams Prize recognizes mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research.

Dr. Ram Murty obtained his BSc from Carleton University in 1976, and his Ph. D. from MIT in 1980. Prior to joining Queen's University in 1996, he was a faculty member at McGill University.

Ram Murty attained the rank of full professor in 1989 and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1990. He was the winner of the 1988 CMS Coxeter-James Prize. was a Steacie Fellow in 1991, and received a Killam Research Fellowship in 1998.

Ram Murty has made systematic, significant and extensive contributions to the central and difficult area of number theory dealing with L-functions and to problems in closely related areas of arithmetic algebraic geometry. His work is in the domain of algebraic and analytic number theory, in which algebra and analysis are fused in the study of number theory. His contributions are of significant depth and beauty, and have been of interest to a broad range of mathematicians.

Ram Murty has made many important research contributions. In collaboration with his brother, Kumar Murty, and Rajiv Gupta, their unconditional proofs related to Artin's 1920's conjecture on primitive roots, have been called "truly spectacular".

Dr. Ram Murty will give the 2003 Jeffery-Williams Prize Lecture at the University of Alberta in June 2003.

The Coxeter-James Prize recognizes young mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research.

Dr. Lisa Jeffrey obtained her A.B. from Princeton University in 1986, and her Ph. D. from Oxford University in 1992. Prior to joining the University of Toronto in 1997, she was a faculty member at Princeton University and McGill University.

Lisa Jeffrey attained the rank of full professor in 1997. She has won numerous awards - the 1996 Aisenstadt Prize, a Sloan Fellowship in 1997, an Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award in 1999, and winner of the CMS 2001 Krieger-Nelson Prize.

Lisa Jeffrey research involves significant and difficult problems at the forefront of several deep mathematical areas: symplectic geometry, algebraic geometry, mathematical physics and differential geometry. She has made major contributions to all of these fields.

Lisa Jeffrey has been involved in the proof of two of the most important conjectures in equivariant symplectic geometry. The proof of Witten's conjecture, which she obtained in collaboration with Frances Kirwin, introduced the powerful technique of non-abelian localization which has had important applications.

She is the author of "Quantum Fields and Strings: a Course for Mathematicians" - the definitive work for mathematicians on the important recent interaction between theoretical physics and geometry.

Dr. Lisa Jeffery will present the 2002 Coxeter-James Prize Lecture at the University of Ottawa in December 2002.

For more information contact:

Dr. Jonathan Borwein, President
Canadian Mathematical Society
Tel: (604) 291-3070
Email: president@cms.math.ca

or

Dr. Graham P. Wright, Executive Director
Canadian Mathematical Society
Tel: (613) 562-5702
Email: director@cms.math.ca