Alejandro Adem,
FRSC is a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
and President of the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; french: Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada, CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering rese ...
of Canada.
Previously he was Director of the
Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences for the period 2008–2015 and during 2015-2019 was the CEO and Scientific Director of
Mitacs
Mitacs is a nonprofit national research organization that, in partnerships with Canadian academia, private industry and government, operates research and training programs in fields related to industrial and social innovation.
History
Mitacs was ...
.
[ from ]University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
[ from ]Notices of the American Mathematical Society
''Notices of the American Mathematical Society'' is the membership journal of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), published monthly except for the combined June/July issue. The first volume appeared in 1953. Each issue of the magazine since ...
Education and academic career
Alejandro Adem did his undergraduate studies at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigge ...
, earning a B.S. in 1982.
He earned his Ph.D. in 1986 from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
, under the supervision of
William Browder. He then worked as Szego Assistant Professor at
Stanford University (1986–89) before joining the faculty at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...
; he moved to the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
in 2005.
Adem has held visiting positions at the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
in Princeton, the ETH-Zürich, the Max-Planck Institute in Bonn, the University of Paris 7 and at Princeton University.
His main areas of research are
algebraic topology
Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics that uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classif ...
and
group cohomology
In mathematics (more specifically, in homological algebra), group cohomology is a set of mathematical tools used to study groups using cohomology theory, a technique from algebraic topology. Analogous to group representations, group cohomolog ...
. Adem has written or co-written over sixty research papers and two research monographs.
From 2013-2020 Adem was managing editor of the
Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society
''Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society'' is a mathematical journal published in six volumes per year, totalling approximately 33 individually bound numbers, by the American Mathematical Society. It is intended to carry papers on new mathema ...
and the
Transactions of the American Mathematical Society
The ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics published by the American Mathematical Society. It was established in 1900. As a requirement, all articles must be more than 15 ...
.
He has served on the scientific and governance boards of the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Califo ...
, the
Banff International Research Station and the
Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.
Honors
Alejandro Adem's awards
include an A.P. Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (1985), an NSF Young Investigator Award (1992), a Romnes Faculty Fellowship from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (1995), Canada Research Chair (2004), Fellow of the
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings ...
(2012) and the 2015
Jeffery–Williams Prize The Jeffery–Williams Prize is a mathematics award presented annually by the Canadian Mathematical Society. The award is presented to individuals in recognition of outstanding contributions to mathematical research. The first award was presen ...
, which was awarded to him by the
Canadian Mathematical Society
The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) (french: Société mathématique du Canada) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. It serves the ...
, with the following citation: "he stands out as one of the few mathematicians who has made important qualitative and calculational contributions to the theory of the cohomology of groups, and applied these results to problems of algebraic topology". In 2016 he was elected corresponding member of the
Mexican Academy of Sciences
The Mexican Academy of Sciences ''(Academia Mexicana de Ciencias)'' is a non-profit organization comprising over 1800 distinguished Mexican scientists, attached to various institutions in the country, as well as a number of eminent foreign coll ...
. In 2020 he was made a Fellow of the
Canadian Mathematical Society
The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) (french: Société mathématique du Canada) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. It serves the ...
. and in 2021 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada.
Personal life
Adem is the son of
geophysicist
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' so ...
:es:Julián Adem, who obtained a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from
Brown University in 1953.
He is also the nephew of noted topologist
José Adem (see
Adem relations), who obtained a Ph.D. in mathematics from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
in 1952.
His father and uncle were both, in their own specialties, elected members of Mexico's exclusive
El Colegio Nacional, and were both recipients of Mexico's
National Prize for Arts and Sciences
The National Prize for Arts and Sciences ( es, Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes) is awarded annually by the Government of Mexico in six categories. It is part of the Mexican Honours System and was established in 1945. The prize is a gold medal a ...
.
Books
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References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adem, Alejandro
Living people
Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
20th-century Mexican mathematicians
21st-century Mexican mathematicians
National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni
Princeton University alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
University of British Columbia Faculty of Science faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)
Topologists
People from Mexico City
Mexican expatriates in the United States
Mexican emigrants to Canada