Oxford Mathematician Graeme Segal has been awarded the Chern Medal in recognition of an outstanding lifelong achievement at the highest level in the field of mathematics. The medal is named in honour of the Chinese-born American mathematician Shiing-Shen Chern and was announced today at the International Congress of Mathematics (ICM) in Philadelphia, USA.
Graeme Segal, for whom Shiing-Shen Chern was a major inspiration, is a geometer and topologist whose profound contributions at different stages of his career have enriched and advanced both mathematics and physics. His early work established foundational results in algebraic topology (particularly homotopy theory) that had a major influence on the subsequent development of that subject. Later, his powerful and elegant work on quantum field theory and string theory was central to the forging of new links between pure mathematics and theoretical physics, elucidating "the role of the concept of space in fundamental physics" as Graeme himself described it.
Graeme was born in Australia and did his undergraduate studies in Sydney, before coming to England to study in Cambridge and Oxford. He was Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry, and Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge from 1990 to 1999 and Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford from 1999 to 2009 where he is now an Emeritus Fellow. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a former President of the London Mathematical Society and was awarded its Polya Prize in 1991. In 2010 he received the Royal Society’s Sylvester Medal for mathematical research.