The London Mathematical Society (LMS) immediate past President, Professor Simon Tavaré FRS, has been elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. Another notable mathematician to receive this honour is Professor Gerd Faltings ForMemRS, Director, Max Planck Institute, Bonn. Professors Tavaré and Faltings were among 21 new Foreign Associates who were recognised for their ‘distinguished and continuing achievements in original research’.

The LMS notes the current crisis in the Higher Education (HE) sector caused by the dispute over proposed changes to the USS pension scheme. The Society wishes to express its deep concern over the planned major downgrades to pensions of academic and related staff, including many members and LMS employees. The Society is concerned about the negative impact on the attractiveness of academic careers in the UK and in particular the retention of the best early career mathematicians.

The Learned Society of Wales (LSW) has announced the election of 42 new Fellows, including two new Honorary Fellows, one of which is LMS Honorary Member Professor Sir Vaughan F.R. Jones KNZM FRS FRSNZ FAA HonFLSW (Vanderbilt University). New Fellows include LMS Member Professor Biagio Lucini FLSW (Swansea University) and Professor Idris Eckley FLSW (Lancaster University). The LMS congratulates each on their election.

More information about the new Fellows is available here

Professor Sir Ian Diamond DL, FBA, FRSE, FacSS, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen is to be the new Chair of the Council for the Mathematical Sciences (CMS). It is anticipated that he will take up the post in September 2018, succeeding Professor Sir Adrian Smith FRS, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London.

Early career mathematicians took part in the annual STEM for BRITAIN competition for the fifth time on Monday 12 March. Thirty posters presenting research in the Mathematical Sciences were presented at Parliament to politicians and a panel of expert judges, who awarded Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes to the top three exhibitors.

Dr Celine Maistret of the University of Bristol was awarded Gold for her research into the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, one of the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) Millennium problems.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has awarded the 2018 Abel Prize to Professor Robert P. Langlands, Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton University, ‘for his visionary program connecting representation theory to number theory’.

It is with great sadness that the London Mathematical Society (LMS) has learned of the death of Professor Stephen Hawking. In the history of the development of general relativity, just a few individuals stand out as having contributed in original, central and fundamental ways.

Dr Eugenie Hunsicker, Chair of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) Women in Mathematics Committee and her filmmaker sister, Irene Linke, have produced a short film for International Women’s Day this year featuring cameos by women mathematicians from around the globe. The film was inspired by the work of the Committee for Women in Mathematics (CWM) of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) and comprises 146 clips of 243 women mathematicians from 36 different countries speaking 31 different languages.

The London Mathematical Society (LMS) would like extend its warmest congratulations to Sir Bernard Silverman FRS, Professor Christl Donnelly FRS and Howard Groves for the honours they received in the New Year Honours list.

Sir Bernard, ex-Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office receives a Knighthood for Public Service and Services to Science.

In a guest blog for the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), LMS Council and Research Officer, Katy Henderson, gives an overview of why we all need mathematics.