Professor Robert McCann to receive the 2017 CMS Jeffery-Williams Prize

McCann's research is at the forefront of the development of the theory and applications of optimal transportation

OTTAWA, Ontario — The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce that Professor Robert McCann (University of Toronto) has been named the recipient of the 2017 CMS Jeffery-Williams Prize for his exceptional contributions to mathematical research. McCann will receive his award and present a lecture at the beginning of the Mathematical Congress of the Americas in July 2017.

McCann is an internationally recognized expert in applied mathematics at the forefront of the development of the theory and applications of optimal transportation. Together with his collaborators and peers worldwide, he has led a renaissance in the theory of optimal transportation, helping to transform it into one of the most vibrant and exciting areas in mathematics today.

In their nomination letter for McCann, Edward Bierstone (University of Toronto) and Nassif Ghoussoub (University of British Columbia) noted that: “McCann’s work itself impacts areas as diverse as geometry, analysis, dynamics, partial differential equations, economics, weather prediction and computer vision.”

McCann completed his undergraduate studies at Queen’s University in 1989. He earned his PhD from Princeton University in 1994 for his thesis introducing the concept of displacement convexity under the supervision of Elliot H. Lieb.

McCann held an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship and Tamarkin Assistant Professorship at Brown University (1994-98). In 1998, he accepted a tenured assistant professorship at the University of Toronto and has been a full professor in the department of mathematics since 2004. He has concurrently held various visiting positions, most recently at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (2016), the Fields Institute for Mathematical Sciences (2014), the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (2012) and the University of Chicago (2012).

McCann currently serves on the editorial boards of Advances in the Calculus of Variations, Journal of Differential Equations, SIAM Journal of Mathematical Analysis, and was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics (2007-2016).

McCann's exceptional contributions to mathematical research have been recognized with several distinguished research awards and honours. A selection of these recognitions include the Monroe H. Martin Prize of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland (2001), the Coxeter­James Prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society (2005), election to both the Royal Society of Canada (2014) and the Fields Institute (2015), and the Simons Fellowship in Mathematics (2016).