Professor Heisuke Hironaka is the President of the Japan Association for Mathematical Sciences, Tokyo, and is a director of the Inamori Foundation, Kyoto.¡@

Professor Hironaka is known for his proof of resolution of singularity for algebraic and analytic varieties in all dimensions.

Educated at Kyoto University and then at Harvard, Professor Hironaka held faculty appointments at Brandeis, Columbia, Harvard and then Kyoto University. From 1996 to 2002 he served as the Resident of Yamaguchi University, and is currently the Academic Director of the University of Creation in Takasaki, Japan. He is a member of the Japan Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foreign member of academies in France, Russia, Korea and Spain. He is a professor emeritus of Harvard University, Kyoto University and Honorary Professor of Shang Dong University in China. He received the Fields Medal in 1970 and the Order of Culture, Tokyo, in 1975.