Isadore M. Singer

Isadore M. Singer was born in 1924 in Detroit, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1944. After obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1950, he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Singer has spent most of his professional life at MIT, where he is currently an Institute Professor.

Singer is a member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). He served on the Council of NAS, the Governing Board of the National Research Council, and the White House Science Council. Singer was vice president of the American Mathematical Society from 1970 - 1972.

In 1992 Singer received the American Mathematical Society's Award for Distinguished Public Service. The citation recognized his "outstanding contribution to his profession, to science more broadly and to the public good."

Among the other awards he has received are the Bôcher Prize (1969) and the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2000), both from the American Mathematical Society, the Eugene Wigner Medal (1988), and the National Medal of Science (1983).

When Singer was awarded the Steele Prize his response, published in the Notices of the AMS, was:
"For me the classroom is an important counterpart to research. I enjoy teaching undergraduates at all levels, and I have a host of graduate students, many of whom have ended up teaching me more than I have taught them."

Singer has also written influential textbooks that have inspired generations of mathematicians.

Sir Michael Francis Atiyah

Michael Francis Atiyah was born in 1929 in London. Atiyah got his B.A. and his doctorate from Trinity College, Cambridge. Atiyah has spent the greatest part of his academic career in Cambridge and Oxford. He has held many prominent positions; among them the highly prestigious Savilian Chair of Geometry at Oxford and that of Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Atiyah has also been professor of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Atiyah rejuvenated British mathematics during his years at Oxford and Cambridge. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge and became its first director. Atiyah is now retired and an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh.

Michael Francis Atiyah has received many honours during his career, including:

• Fields Medal (1966)
• Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1962, at the age of 32
• Awarded the Royal Medal of the Society in 1968 and its Copley Medal in 1988
• President of the Royal Society - 1990 to 1995
• President of London Maths Society - 1974 to1976

He has also played an important role in the shaping of today's European Mathematical Society (EMS).

Atiyah was responsible for the founding of the Inter-Academy Panel that brought together many of the worlds academies of science. The Inter-Academy Panel has now been permanently established and will play a major role in the integration of scientific policy throughout the world. Atiyah also instigated the formation of the Association of European Academies (ALLEA). Atiyah has been president of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Prizes he has received include the Feltrinelli Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (1981) and the King Faisal International Prize for Science (1987). Michael Francis Atiyah was knighted in 1983 and made a member of the Order of Merit in 1992.

Picture's Michael F. Atiyah and Isadore M. Singer © Marc Atkins - www.panoptika.net.jpg/Courtesy of MIT News Office