MEDIA RELEASE — February 26, 2018

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Canadian Mathematical Society

OTTAWA – The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce that Professor Megumi Harada (McMaster) has been named the recipient of the 2018 Krieger-Nelson Prize for her research on Newton-Okounkov bodies, Hessenberg varieties, and their relationships to symplectic geometry, combinatorics, and equivariant topology, among others. Professor Harada will receive her award and present a prize lecture at the CMS Summer meeting in Fredericton, New Brunswick, June 1-4, 2018.

Harada’s papers have been published in many of the top journals in the field, such as lnventiones Mathematica, Advances in Mathematics, Geometry and Topology, Journal of Symplectic Geometry, and Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.

Professor Harada’s Inventiones paper “Integrable systems, toric degenerations and Okounkov bodies” with Kaveh has attracted much attention, as it provides a new connection between algebraic geometry and the symplectic geometry of integrable systems. For example, it gives a new tool for studying the symplectic topology of fairly general smooth projective varieties. More broadly, Newton-Okounkov bodies provide convex-geometric models for projective varieties, thus paving the way for combinatorial methods for analyzing their geometry. One basic example is the Newton-Okounkov body of a toric variety, which coincides with its usual Newton polytope.

In recent years Harada has additionally made several significant contributions to the study of the global structure and equivariant cohomology rings of Hessenberg varieties using tools she helped to develop.

Harada has earned many research awards, including the Canada Research Chair (Tier II), sponsored by the Government of Canada (2013-2018); the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitation Fellowship (Long-Term) for Research in Japan, 2014; the Ruth Michler Prize and Fellowship, the Association for Women in Mathematics, the Cornell University 2013; the Early Researcher Award, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, 2008-2013; and the University Faculty Award, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), 2007-2012.

Harada earned her Bachelor’s degree at Harvard University (summa cum laude) in 1996, and her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003. Following her graduation, Harada was appointed a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Academic) at the University of Toronto, Department of Mathematics until 2006 and she is now a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at McMaster University.

About the Krieger-Nelson Prize

The Krieger-Nelson Prize, jointly named for Cecilia Krieger and Evelyn Nelson was first awarded in 1995. It was inaugurated to recognize outstanding contributions in the area of mathematical research by a female mathematician.

For information about past recipients visit: https://cms.math.ca/Prizes/info/kn.html