The 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics has been awarded to Professor Christopher Hacon (University of Utah) and Professor James McKernan (University of California, San Diego). The Prize ceremony was held in Silicon Valley on 3rd December 2017. Each Breakthrough Prize award is $3 million, the largest individual monetary prize in science.
Professors Hacon and McKernan receive their awards for ‘transformational contributions to birational algebraic geometry, especially to the minimal model programme in all dimensions’. The LMS congratulates both on receiving the award. The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics rewards significant discoveries across the many branches of the subject. The prize was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner and was announced at the 2014 Breakthrough Prize ceremony
The LMS is also delighted to announce that Professor James McKernan will give a presentation at the LMS Society Meeting at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego on Wednesday 10 January 2018. More information about the meeting is available here
New Horizons in Mathematics Prizes were also awarded and these went to Professors Aaron Naber (Northwestern University), Maryna Viazovska (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), Zhiwei Yun (Yale University) and Wei Zhang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University). This annual prize of $100,000, recognises the achievements of early-career mathematicians.
More information about the Breakthrough Prize is available here