The 2019 Prize in
Mathematical Sciences
Michel Talagrand
for his work on concentration inequalities, on suprema of stochastic processes and on rigorous results for spin glasses.
The Contribution
The Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences 2019 is awarded to Michel Talagrand, Former Senior Researcher, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France, for his work on concentration inequalities, on suprema of stochastic processes and on rigorous results for spin glasses.
Michel Talagrand has made profound contributions to probability and high-dimensional geometry, at least three of which could be described as revolutionary.
An Essay on the Prize
Michel Talagrand works in the areas of probability and high-dimensional geometry. While these areas may sound quite different, they are in fact intimately connected: indeed, a sequence of random variables, each of which takes a numerical value, can be thought of as the coordinates of a single random variable that takes values in a high-dimensional space. And a major theme in modern statistics is the difficulty of extracting useful information from data that depend on many variables, which is naturally modelled as a problem about identifying structure in high-dimensional sets.
Talagrand has made profound contributions to the two areas, at least three of which could be described as revolutionary.
About the Laureate
Michel Talagrand
Michel Talagrand was born in 1952 in France. He obtained his PhD in Mathematical Sciences in 1977 from the University of Paris VI, France. From 1974 until his retirement in 2017, he was part of the Functional Analysis Team of the Institute of Mathematics of the University Paris IV. He was successively Research Trainee, Research Associate, Researcher and Senior Researcher for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
21 May 2019 Hong Kong
Feature Story
"Mysteries in High Dimensions" by Dr Michel Talagrand
“Meet The Shaw Laureates 2019 – the Challenges and the Joy of Doing Science”