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Leroy P. Steele Prizes

Each year, The Steele Prize is awarded in the following categories:

1. The Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement is awarded for the cumulative influence of the total mathematical work of the recipient, high level of research over a period of time, particular influence on the development of a field, and influence on mathematics through Ph.D. students. Nominate a colleague.

2. The Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition is awarded for a book or substantial survey or expository research paper. Nominate a colleague.

3. The Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research is awarded for a paper, whether recent or not, that has proved to be of fundamental or lasting importance in its field, or a model of important research. Nominate a colleague.

Special Note: beginning with the 1994 prize, there has been a five-year cycle of fields for the Seminal Contribution to Research Award.  That cycle would have the 2013 prize awarded in logic (logic alternates with discrete mathematics every five years), 2014 in analysis, 2015 in algebra, 2016 in applied mathematics, 2017 in geometry/topology, and 2018 in discrete mathematics renewing the cycle.

Prize Details	Next Prizes	Previous Prizes
Each of these three US$5,000 prizes is awarded annually. More detail.	January 2013	View our prizes and awards archive to see all Steele Prize winners.

Most Recent Prizes

Lifetime Achievement: January 2012
The 2012 Lifetime Achievement Prize was awarded to Ivo M. Babuška for his many pioneering advances in the numerical solution of partial differential equations over the last half century.

Mathematical Exposition: January 2012
The 2012 Mathematical Exposition Prize was awarded to Michael Aschbacher, Richard Lyons, Steve Smith, and Ronald Solomon for their work, The classification of finite simple groups: groups of characteristic 2 type, Mathematical Surveys and Monographs, 172, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 2011.

Seminal Contribution to Research: January 2012
The 2012 Seminal Contribution to Research Prize was awarded to William Thurston for his contributions to low dimensional topology, and in particular for a series of highly original papers, starting with “Hyperbolic structures on 3-manifolds. I. Deformation of acylindrical manifolds” (Ann. of Math. (2) 124 (1986), no. 2, 203–246), that revolutionized 3-manifold theory.

More About this Prize
These prizes were established in 1970 in honor of George David Birkhoff, William Fogg Osgood, and William Caspar Graustein, and are endowed under the terms of a bequest from Leroy P. Steele. From 1970 to 1976 one or more prizes were awarded each year for outstanding published mathematical research; most favorable consideration was given to papers distinguished for their exposition and covering broad areas of mathematics. In 1977 the Council of the AMS modified the terms under which the prizes are awarded. In 1993, the Council formalized the three categories of the prize by naming each of them: (1) The Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement; (2) The Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition; and (3) The Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research.