Recent News

Alain Aspect and Hugo Duminil-Copin appointed to the French Presidential Science Committee

On Thursday, December 7, 2023, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, announced the creation of a Presidential Scientific Advisory Committee, made up of twelve scientists. “The committee will bring together researchers working in a wide range of fields, who will advise the President on how best to place science at the heart of technical decisions and strategy,” said the Élysée Palace. Aspect and Duminil-Copin were named permanent members of the committee.

Marcel Filoche and Svitlana Mayboroda awarded the inaugural 2024 Elias M. Stein Prize of the American Mathematical Society for New Perspectives in Analysis

The Elias M. Stein Prize for New Perspectives in Analysis is awarded for the development of groundbreaking methods in analysis which demonstrate promise to revitalize established areas or create new opportunities for mathematical discovery. You can read more about this story here.

Hugo Duminil-Copin elected to membership in the French Academy of Science

Created by Colbert in 1666, the French Academie des Sciences is an assembly of scientists, chosen among the most distinguished French and foreign specialists. It examines the political, ethical and societal issues surrounding the current and future scientific topics. The Academy reflects, anticipates, explains and pronounces itself, mainly through opinions and recommendations and takes position when necessary. It aims to provide policy makers with a framework of expertise, counsel and alert and more broadly to enlighten the debates and choices of our society. In addition, the French Académie des Sciences supports research, is committed to the quality of science education and promotes scientific life at the international level.

Marcel Filoche and Yu-Renn receive Franco-Taiwanese Scientific Grand Prize

Photograph of two people in suits next two an image of two gold-toned medals in blue velvet boxes.

We are pleased to announce that Simons Collaboration PI Marcel Filoche and collaborator Yu-Renn have received the Franco-Taiwanese Scientific Grand Prize. The Académie des sciences - Institut de France and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan award a Franco-Taiwanese Scientific Grand Prize every year to a team of French and Taiwanese researchers for their contribution to scientific research of interest to both regions. You can read more here.

Svitlana Mayboroda receives prestigious 2023 Blavatnik Award

Svitlana Mayboroda, Director of the Simons Collaboration on Localization of Waves and McKnight Presidential Professor at the University of Minnesota, has been named the 2023 Blavatnik National Awards Laureate in Physical Sciences & Engineering, the first time the prize has been awarded in applied mathematics in its ten-year history. Mayboroda will receive a $250,000 prize – the largest unrestricted scientific award for America’s most innovative, young faculty-ranked scientists and engineers – and receive a medal at the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Ceremony in September 2023. Read the College of Science and Engineering award announcement and watch the New York Academy of Sciences YouTube video.

Svitlana Mayboroda receives Distinguished Alumni Award

Collaboration Director Svitlana Mayboroda has been selected to receive the 2023 College of Arts & Science Distinguished Alumni Award, in recognition of her accomplishments since graduating from the University of Missouri. 

Guy David elected Member of the French Academy of Sciences

Guy David, WAVE Collaboration Principal Investigator, was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. Founded in 1666 the society was designed to encourage and protect scientific research in France, and was at the forefront of scientific developments in the world during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today the Academy is one of five academies comprising the Institut de France and its members are elected for life. More information can be found in the CNRS website.

Douglas Arnold awarded the 2023 Peter Henrici Prize

Collaboration PI, Douglas Arnold has been selected to receive the 2023 Peter Henrici Prize in recognition of his "fundamental contributions of extraordinary originality, depth, and impact to the finite element analysis of partial differential equations, ranking amongst the classics in numerical analysis literature."  The Henrici Prize is jointly awarded by Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule-Zürich (ETH Zurich) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) once every four years for original contributions to applied analysis and numerical analysis and/or for exposition appropriate for applied mathematics and scientific computing. The award is intended to recognize broad and extended contributions to these subjects, more than a single outstanding work, and has no further eligibility requirements.  Prof. Arnold will be the seventh recipient of the award.  It will be presented to him by the President of SIAM at ICIAM 2023, the 10th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, to be held August 20-25, 2003 in Tokyo.  Prof. Arnold will also deliver a plenary address at the congress. More information about the award can be found on the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics website

Kaibo Hu selected for SIAM Early Career Prize

WAVE alumni Kaibo Hu has been selected for the SIAM Computational Science and Engineering Early Career Prize for his contributions to the finite element exterior calculus, particularly structure-preserving numerical algorithms for magnetohydrodynamics.  The award, which is given to one early career researcher every two years for outstanding, influential, and potentially long-lasting contributions to the field, will be conferred at the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE23) in Amsterdam in early March, where Dr. Hu will present a plenary lecture. Kaibo was a postdoc with WAVE PI Douglas Arnold in 2018-2020 partially supported by the Simons Collaboration grant. He is now a Hooke Fellow at University of Oxford. 


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2022

2022

Alain Aspect awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics

Alain Aspect, WAVE Collaboration Principal Investigator, was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science", shared with John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger.  Their trail-blazing research established the reality of quantum entanglement, paving the way for a new era of quantum technologies and, in particular, the burgeoning field of quantum information science. Aspect's work also provided an experimental answer to the famous EPR paradox proposed half a century earlier by Einstein, Poldosky, and Rosen. More information can be found in the award announcement or in the official press release. To learn more about this award wining research watch this video.

Hugo Duminil-Copin awarded the Fields Medal

Collaboration PI, Hugo Duminil-Copin was awarded the Fields Medal for solving longstanding problems in the probabilistic theory of phase transitions in statistical physics, especially in dimensions three and four. The Fields Medal is awarded to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement. More information can be found in the award announcement or in the official press release.

Wave Collaboration PI Alain Aspect was awarded Commandeur of the Legion of Honour 

The Legion of Honour is the the highest French order of merit. 

Hugo Duminil-Copin Knighted 

On July 13, 2022 by decree of the President of the France, Hugo Duminil-Copin, WAVE Collaboration Principal Investigator, was named to the National Order of the Legion of Honor with the rank of Knight (Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur). The Legion of Honor was established by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1802 and is France's highest order of merit.

Svitlana Mayboroda delivers CBMS lecture series at Florida State University

Collaboration Director Svitlana Mayboroda will deliver ten lectures at a conference entitled "Analysis, Geometry, and PDEs in a Lower-Dimensional World" from May 23-27, 2022.  The conference, which will be held at Florida State University is part of the series NSF-CBMS Regional Research Conferences in the Mathematical Sciences.  Additional information can be found at https://cbms2020.math.fsu.edu.

Summer school on topics in spectral geometry at Bonn

(Nodal domains and landscape functions)
The Collaboration's work on landscape functions will be presented as part of the program in Germany from October 2 - October 7, 2022. The application deadline is May 15.  For more information see https://www.math.uni-bonn.de/ag/ana/WiSe2223/summer_school/.

Alain Aspect Named Optica Honorary Member

February 23, 2022 — Optica, the society advancing optics and photonics worldwide, has named renowned physicist and Collaboration PI, Alain Aspect an Optica Honorary Member. Aspect was recognized for "illuminating fundamental aspects of the quantum-mechanical behavior of single photons, photon pairs and atoms and transforming our understanding of the quantum world." Read the news release.

2021

David Jerison nominated for next AMS President

August 16, 2021 — WAVE PI and MIT's own David Jerison is nominated to become the next president of the American Mathematical Society. Read Professor Jerison's nomination.

Enabling the next generation of organic solar cells

August 11, 2021 — Researchers, including WAVE's Sir Richard Friend, have discovered a new and faster way in which organic materials redistribute sunlight energy, which could enable the next generation of organic solar cells to convert sunlight into electrical power and help in the battle against climate change. View Science Daily or Renew Economy for the full research article.

Larger overview on Anderson localization — Antoine Julia

May 25, 2021 — WAVE Postdoctoral Student Antoine Julia will present May 25 at 9 a.m. PST / 11 a.m. CST / 5 p.m. BST / 6 p.m. CEST and give a larger overview on Anderson localization. Enter the Zoom.

Bruno Poggi recipient of the 2021 School of Mathematics Outstanding Thesis Award

May 20, 2021 — WAVE's Bruno Poggi recently received the 2021 University of Minnesota School of Mathematics Outstanding Thesis Award. This fellowship award comes with $1000 in recognition of Poggi's achievements. On behalf of the Simons Collaborations on Localization of Waves, we congratulate Bruno on having the most outstanding thesis!

WAVE Graduate Students Successfully Defend Ph.D. Thesis

April 8, 2021 — WAVE Graduate Students Perceval Desforges and Tyson Loudon successfully defended their respective Ph.D. theses. Desforges defended his thesis on the "Analysis of the spatial and spectral structures of localized eigenfunctions in Anderson models through the localization landscape theory." Desforges will also be joining Advestis, a company developing maching learning-based software. Several days later on April 16th, Loudon was able to do the same for his thesis entitled "Lanczos approximation of joint spectral quantities and applications." Please welcome WAVE in congratulating both individuals on their achievements.

 

2020

Atos to Participate in France’s National Strategy on Quantum Technologies

WAVE P.I. Alain Aspect is on the Atos Advisory Board that will be leading the efforts—he is also mentioned. Dec. 4: HPC WireGlobal Security Mag;

Atos Announces Q-Score Metrics for Assessing Quantum Performance and Superiority

WAVE P.I. Alain Aspect is on the Atos Advisory Board that made the decision. Dec. 4: HPC WireGlobal Security Mag;

2020 French Electricity Ampère Prize winner: Guy David

The 2020 Ampère de l'Électricité de France prize is awarded to Guy David, a professor in the mathematics department of Orsay, at the University of Paris-Saclay. Nov. 24: Institut de France;

Pushing Photons

UC Santa Barbara researchers continue to push the boundaries of LED design a little further with a new method that could pave the way toward more efficient and versatile LED display and lighting technology. WAVE P.I. Claude Weisbuch, collaborator Guillaume Lheureux, and consultant Shuji Nakamura are leading this research. July 16: The Institute for Energy Efficiency

At $23.7M, largest NSF grant in university history to renew Brown’s math institute

The grant, which is the largest NSF award in Brown’s history, will support ICERM’s cutting-edge research and education programming for the next five years. WAVE
Consultant Jill Pipher (Brown’s vice president for research and a mathematics professor who served as ICERM’s founding director) is quoted. July 14: Mirage

World’s first electric digger wins MacRobert Award for UK engineering innovation

The Royal Academy of Engineering has today announced JCB’s electric digger (19C-1E) as the winner of the 2020 MacRobert Award, the most prestigious prize for UK engineering innovation. WAVE P.I. Sir Richard Friend was quoted as part of the awards panel that made the decision. July 9: FE News

UV Lights the Way

Materials scientists work on the semiconductors that could transform how we disinfect surfaces, spaces, personal protective equipment — even the air we breathe. WAVE P.I. James Speck and WAVE Consultant Shuji Nakamura are leading the research. June 25: UCSBIEE;

The "parents" of wavelet theory, winners of the Princess of Asturias Research

The contributions of WAVE P.I. Yves Meyer, WAVE Consultant Terence Tao, as well as, Ingrid Daubechies and Emmanuel Candès have fueled momentous advances in countless fields, such as communications and medicine. June 23: LNETelesantander;

Pushing Photons

Metasurface design methods can make LED light act more like lasers. Wave P.I. Claude Weisbuch and Wave Consultant Shuji Nakamura contributed to this project. View full article here.

WAVE P.I. Douglas Arnold to give "Distinguished Lecture in Natural Sciences" via Zoom at Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Titled "Wave Localization and its Landscape," the meeting will be held on Zoom (ID: 955-626-784; PIN: 667844). On April 11th, Arnold will focus on major strides made in recent years based on the introduction of the landscape function and its partner, the effective potential. View the full event website here.

The first Simons Collaboration on Localization of Waves Annual Meeting kicks off in NYC

February 20, 2020 — The Annual Meeting brings together world leading mathematicians and physicists whose work illuminates profound connections between disorder, geometric complexity, and the behavior of waves, or harnesses recent advances in mathematical analysis for important applications in physics involving wave localization.  Organizers Svitlana Mayboroda (University of Minnesota) and Marcel Filoche (Ecole Polytechnique)  have established an exemplary panel of speakers who will show how the collaboration has built bridges from harmonic analysis to cold atoms or nitride-based LEDs, and from the geometric measure theory to transport in organic semiconductors.  We look forward to discussions and cross-fertilization of ideas between scientists of a wide variety of backgrounds. Follow @SimonsWave on Twitter for more research highlights and visit the Annual Meeting website for more information

Quantum computer: the first quantum teleportation between two silicon chips has been successful

January 06, 2020 — Silicon-based quantum chips could allow the exploitation of well-known industrial production techniques with conventional silicon chips to massively produce quantum computers of the future. Wave P.I. Alain Aspect is mentioned for his pioneering discoveries regarding quantum entanglement. Read more about this new discovery in the full news article.

2019

Atos boosts quantum application development through the creation of the first Quantum User Group

December 12, 2019 — Following on from the 6th meeting of its Quantum Scientific Council, Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, announces that it is continuing to enrich its quantum development ecosystem, through the creation of a global User Group of the Atos Quantum Learning Machine (QLM). WAVE P.I. Alain Aspect will serve on this global User Group and lend his insight to the new formation of minds. Read the rest of the article on GlobeNewswire.

Dr. Douglas Arnold to give Erwin Schrödinger lecture at University of Vienna

November 25, 2019 — On Monday, December 16, Simons Wave Collaboration P.I. Douglas Arnold will be address those in attendence at the University of Vienna. In a talk titled 'Wave localization and landscape,' Arnold will touch upon  the puzzling phenomenon of wave localization and the talk will focus on major strides made in recent years based on the introduction of the landscape function and its partner, the effective potential. Read the full abstract on the poster image, attached to this page, or learn more about the lecture on the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematics and Physics website.

First C2N Colloquium: Alain Aspect for the Center for Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies (C2N) Palaiseau

October 11, 2019 — WAVE P.I. Alain Aspect's presentation will be the first of a series of Colloquia C2N, organized around the coming of great scientific personalities. It will address a wide audience, and will have for theme: from Einstein's questions to quantum information. Aspect will present "A New Quantum Revolution," to read more about this talk, visit the Unidivers website.

Mathematicians Luis Caffarelli and Douglas Arnold To Speak in Baylor Lecture Series in Fall 2019

September 16, 2019 — Luis Caffarelli and Douglas Arnold are the speakers in, respectively, the thirteenth annual Baylor Lecture Series in Mathematics and the twelfth annual Baylor Undergraduate Lecture Series in Mathematics; both will speak this fall on campus. Professors Caffarelli and Arnold are internationally recognized for their fundamental research in mathematics. See the full article detailing the event on the Baylor website.

Simons Wave Collaboration research featured in Journal Club for Condensed Matter Physics

September 3, 2019 — "Hidden landscape of an Anderson insulator" which is authored by five Simons Wave Collaboration principal investigators is published in the acclaimed Journal Club for Condensed Matter Physics. It is one of the featured research articles for the August editions. You can see the listing and the publication on the Journal Club for Condensed Matter Physics website.

Wave Principal Investigator Dr. Alain Aspect to be panelist in Quantum Computing Business Conference

June 4, 2019 — Dr. Alain Aspect to join several high level speakers at Q2B, a quantum computing business conference. He will be joined by "Philippe Grangier, Antoine Petit (CNRS), Maud Vinet, Nicolas Sekkaki (IBM), Thierry Breton (Atos) and Vern Brownell (CEO of D-Wave) and representatives of Rigetti, IonQ, Zapata Computing, Atos, Microsoft , Quandela, LightOn, Vericloud, Airbus, Total and EDF." If you would like to read more about Q2B or it's host, Bpifrance, please visit the FrenchWeb Magazine website. If you would like to read directly about Q2B, please visit the Q2B website.

John Simons Guggenheim Memorial Foundation offers 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship to 168 diverse individuals

April 16, 2019 — Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, Principal Investigator for the Simons Collaboration on Localization of Waves Dr. David Jerison was the only researcher to be awarded the Fellowship in the Mathematics division. You can see the current list of Guggenheim Fellows on the John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Website or download the full list here.

Wavelets and Beyond - A Celebration of Alexandre Grossmann and Yves Meyer

June 12, 2019 — Alexandre Grossmann and Yves Meyer contributed to the foundations of wavelet theory and their applications. This conference will celebrate their research on wavelets and, more broadly, the many scientific fields they have explored: theoretical physics, harmonic analysis, signal and image processing, sciences of the universe, geophysics, mathematical biology. Join, as we pay a scientific and friendly tribute to the memory of Alexandre Grossmann, who left us on February 12, 2019. For more information visit the event website.

Sir Richard H. Friend discusses back-contact perovskite solar cells

February 9, 2019 — Interdigitated back-contact (IBC) architectures are the best performing technology in crystalline Si (c-Si) photovoltaics (PV). Although single junction perovskite solar cells have now surpassed 23% efficiency, most of the research has mainly focussed on planar and mesostructured architectures. The number of studies involving IBC devices is still limited and the proposed architectures are unfeasible for large scale manufacturing. Here we discuss the importance of IBC solar cells as a powerful tool for investigating the fundamental working mechanisms of perovskite materials. We show a detailed fabrication protocol for IBC perovskite devices that does not involve photolithography and metal evaporation. To watch the interview or read the transcript, visit the SciVPro website.

2018

Institute des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques October workshop featured physicist Dr. Alain Aspect

November 27, 2018 — This October, Nokia Bell Labs and its Distinguished Academic Partner, Paris Saclay University, held an inaugural joint workshop with The Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES). The partnership of Nokia Bell Labs with IHES focuses on excellence in the field of mathematics. More information about the talk can be found on the NOKIA Bell Labs Event page.

Ad Honorem Yves Meyer

November 26, 2018 — Yves Meyer was awarded the 2017 Abel Prize. His work has impacted mathematics in a broad and profound way. Perhaps even more importantly, he has led a broad, multifaceted, worldwide network of research collaborations of mathematics with music, chemistry, physics, and signal processing. He has made seminal contributions in a number of fields, from number theory to applied mathematics.  Yves Meyer's work is featured in the Notices of the AMS and more.

New efficiency record set for perovskite LEDs

November 5, 2018 — Researchers at the University of Cambridge have set a new efficiency record for LEDs based on perovskite semiconductors, rivalling that of the best organic LEDs (OLEDs). Sir Richard Friend's group at the University's Cavendish Laboratory continues to make waves by setting a new efficency record for LED's, rivalling that of the best organic LEDs (OLEDs). Read more on the Science Daily website.

Dr. Douglas Arnold to speak at Brown University

November 1, 2018 — The Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) is hosting a "Celebrating 75 Years of Mathematics of Computation" conference at Brown University from November 1-3, 2018. Wave Localization Principal Investigator Dr. Douglas Arnold will be speaking about how the "Mathematics of Computation meets Geometry" late into the last day of the conference. Read more on the ICERM website.

University of Minnesota receives federal grant to study disorder in quantum systems

The University of Minnesota announced today that it has received $1 million over the next four years from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for fundamental quantum research that will help develop materials that could someday be used in quantum computing. The team, consisting of mathematician Svitlana Mayboroda at the University of Minnesota and materials scientists Jim Speck and Claude Weisbuch at the University of California – Santa Barbara, is one of only 25 nationwide to receive a grant under NSF’s Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering-Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems (RAISE-TAQS) effort that will help enable the United States to lead a new quantum technology revolution. Read the full article on the College of Science and Engineering website.

Researchers receive $8 million to study fundamental science of waves

August 31, 2018 — The University of Minnesota announced today an award of $8 million over the next four years from the Simons Foundation to an international collaboration. The project, called the Simons Collaboration on Localization of Waves, will be headquartered at the University of Minnesota and will bring together top experts from around the world to study the fundamental science of waves. Read the full article on the College of Science and Engineering websiteCNRSPolyTechnique.

The common mathematical structure of noise, diffusion of oxygen and LEDs

July 3, 2018 — Wave Localiztion Principal Investigator Dr. Marcel Filoche writes about the three aspects in which different research fields intervene: harmonic analysis, partial differential equations and geometry. Read the full article on El País.

2017 AND EARLIER

Mathematicians Tame Rogue Waves, Lighting Up Future of LEDs

August 22, 2017 — The mathematician Svitlana Mayboroda and collaborators have figured out how to predict the behavior of electrons — a mathematical discovery that could have immediate practical effects. Read more in Quanta Magazine.

Alain Aspect: From Einstein to Wheeler

January 1, 2016 — Wave Localization Principal Investigator Dr. Alain Aspect is featured in the Institute for Quantum Computing's Quantum Frontiers Distinguished Lecture Series in 2014. Featured by the IQC, Aspect talks about wave particle duality for a photon and more. Watch or listen to the full talk on the IQC's YouTube channel.

Interviews with great French physicists on the subject of non-separability

January 1, 2016 — Wave Localization Principal Investigator Dr. Alain Aspect is amongst several physicists to speak on the subject of non-separability (quantum entanglement). Watch the full video on The Aristarque Youtube channel.