IMO Award Ceremony

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
2700 F Street NW, Washington, DC

John Kenelly, President, IMO 2001 USA
Claude Deschamps, Chair, IMO Advisory Board

Overview of Awards
(Ronald Graham, Chair of the IMO Jury)

Bronze Medals

Silver Medals

Gold Medals

This elaborate ceremony involved presentation of medals to the students placing in the top fifty percent in this year's Olympiad. The rules of the Olympiad stipulate that only one-twelth of the total participants in the Olympiad may receive the gold medal, and one-sixth may receive the silver medal. Students who are not gold or silver medalists receive the bronze medal. The medals were presented by eminent mathematicians and proponents of mathematics including Landon T. Clay, Rita Colwell, Hyman Bass, Andrew Wiles, Edward Witten, officers of the Akamai Foundation, IMO officials, and other important members of the mathematical community.

At the 2001 Awards Ceremony, CMI initiated a new award to honor the top scorers in the IMO competition. In accordance with CMI's mission to encourage gifted students to pursue mathematical careers, and to celebrate the beauty, power, and universality of mathematical thought, CMI established the CMI-IMO Award. This award recognizes outstanding achievement in the individual portion of the International Mathematics Olympiad. The 2001 CMI-IMO Award took the form of state-of-the-art notebook computers and accompanying software, presented to the four students who obtained perfect scores on the IMO exam. The CMI-IMO Award was announced this year by CMI President Arthur Jaffe, during the second part of the Awards Ceremony Program in Washington, DC on July 13, 2001. The notebook computers were presented to the recipients during the dinner at the National Building Museum.

Program Notes

Andrew Wiles was born and educated in England and later became professor at Princeton University. He may be the world's best-known mathematician, on account of his role in resolving the 350-year-old mathematical mystery of "Fermat's Last Theorem," for which he was knighted in the year 2000. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Clay Mathematics Institute.

Edward Witten worked in many fields of physics - ranging from classical gauge theory, relativity, quantum field theory, and particle phenomenology, to string theory, where he is the leading advocate. Witten is also a mathematician and received the Fields Medal in 1990. He is Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, and for the last two years has been a Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Clay Mathematics Institute.

Claude Deschamps is chair of the IMO Advisory Board and professeur de mathématiques au lycée Louis-le-Grand.

John Ewing is Executive Director of the American Mathematical Society and was formerly a professor of mathematics at Indiana University.

Ronald Graham is professor of mathematics at the University of California at San Diego, and formerly chief scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Arthur Jaffe is president of the Clay Mathematics Institute and professor at Harvard University.

John Kenelly is president of the IMO 2001 USA, Inc. and Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Clemson University.

Sally Sanford is one of the leading American specialists in historical singing. She has performed widely in Europe and the United States and has made recordings on several labels. Sally teaches voice at Wellesley College, where she also directs the Collegium Musicum.

Stanislav Smirnov is senior lecturer at the KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden. Now thirty years old, he was born in Russia, was educated at Saint Petersburg State University and the California Institute of Technology, and has held research positions at Yale, the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) is a not-for-profit foundation, established in September 1998 by Boston businessman Landon T. Clay with his wife Lavinia D. Clay. CMI carries out its mission to increase and disseminate mathematical knowledge through executing programs of research and education. In particular, CMI encourages talented students to pursue mathematical careers. Information about CMI can be found on this website, including the challenge launched at the CMI Millennium Meeting inviting mathematicians to resolve seven classic mathematical mysteries.

In May 2000, the IMO 2001 invited CMI to plan and execute the Closing Ceremonies of the International Mathematical Olympiad, in conjunction with its 2001 Annual Meeting. As a part of this event, CMI included seven student project presentations. Each student presenter will be mentored by one of the CMI Long-Term Prize Fellows. Gabriel Carroll, Jayce Robert Getz, Travis Schedler, Alexander (Sasha) Schwartz, Lisa Beth Schwartz, Jake Wildstrom, and Melanie Wood presented projects at the Reception To Honor the Spirit of Mathematics following the Awards Ceremony.