News Release
AISE JOHAN DE JONG RECEIVES
AMS COLE PRIZE
Contact at AMS: Dr. John H. Ewing,
AMS Executive Director
e-mail: jhe@ams.org
telephone: 401-455-4100
fax: 401-331-3842
January 20, 2000
PROVIDENCE, RI --- Aise Johan de Jong of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology has won the 2000 Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra.
Presented by the American Mathematical Society, the Cole Prize is one of the
highest distinctions given in the fields of number theory and algebra. The
prize will be awarded at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Washington, DC on
January 20, 2000.
de Jong has done important and insightful work in mathematics. According to the
prize citation, he is receiving the Cole Prize "for his important work on the
resolution of singularities by generically finite maps. In particular, the
prize is awarded for the fundamental paper `Smoothness, semistability and
alterations,' (Publ. Math. I.H.E.S, v. 83, 51-93, 1996). Already it has been
used to solve important problems: by de Jong and his co-authors to construct
semistable reductions of families of varieties (which is a first step in
constructing compactifications of moduli spaces, always a main goal of
algebraic geometers), and also by others such as O. Gabber, who used it to
prove part of Serre's famous conjecture about intersection numbers over regular
local rings."
Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the
30,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through
programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses,
strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of
mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life.
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