Man of the Hour - Professor emeritus Louis Nirenberg

It has been an eventful year for Professor Nirenberg, a Courant alumnus (MS, PhD '47) as well as a distinguished member of the faculty. The Institute celebrated his 90th birthday (a few months early) at a reception on October 17, 2014. We were pleased to be joined for the occasion by many of Louis' mathematical friends.

We were then thrilled to learn on March 25 that Professor Nirenberg was named a 2015 Abel Prize winner with John F. Nash, Jr. of Princeton. The Norwegian Academy of Sciences & Letters, which confers the prize, cited Professors Nirenberg and Nash “for striking and seminal contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations and its applications to geometric analysis.” The Institute celebrated with a reception on Monday, March 30. Colleagues, former students and friends offering their congratulations, anecdotes, and fond feelings for Professor Nirenberg included Institute Director Gerard Ben Arous who flew in from Paris, where he has been on sabbatical, Acting Director Mike Shelley, Mr. Martin Fossum of the Norwegian Consul’s office in New York, Bob Kohn, Jalal Shatah, former Nirenberg student Sergiu Klainerman, Peter Lax, Charles Fefferman and NYU President John Sexton.