MEDIA RELEASE — June 16, 2017

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Canadian Mathematical Society

OTTAWA – The Canadian Mathematical Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Alan Beardon has been named the recipient of the 2017 G. de B. Robinson Award for his paper on Non-discrete frieze groups published in the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin (Canad. Math. Bull. 59 (2016), 234-243).

This paper deals with groups of real isometries which map the real number line to itself, with a particular focus on studying the conjugacy classes of the groups whose discrete forms correspond to the seven classic frieze groups. The results of this paper (written in an effective way to make itself more accessible to the reader) will be of interest to a wide audience.

For the last fifteen years Beardon has devoted much of his time to the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in South Africa, and has lectured at AIMS Ghana and AIMS Tanzania. He is the author of eight texts and nearly 200 research papers. Beardon is interested in many areas of pure mathematics, and particularly in applying ideas that cross subject boundaries.

Beardon’s first two teaching positions were at the University of Maryland, 1964-66, working with Professor Joe Lehner, and the University of Kent at Canterbury, 1966-68. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1964 from Imperial College, London, under the supervision of Professor Walter Hayman. Since then, Beardon had been at the University of Cambridge until his retirement in 2007.

About the G. de B. Robinson Award

The G. de B. Robinson Award is named for Gilbert de Beauregard Robinson, the third president of the CMS. Robinson, along with H.S.M. Coxeter, established the Canadian Journal of Mathematics (CJM) and acted as the managing editor for 30 years. The award is given out to recognize outstanding contributions to the CJM or the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin (CMB).