for David Mumford’s contributions to mathematics, and to the new interdisciplinary fields of pattern theory and vision research; and for Wentsun Wu’s contributions to the new interdisciplinary field of mathematics mechanization.
David Mumford and Wu Wentsun both started their careers in pure mathematics but then each made a substantial move towards applied mathematics in the direction of computer science.
Mumford worked on computer aspects of vision and Wu on computer proofs in the field of geometry. In both cases their pioneering contributions to research and to the development of the field were outstanding. Many leading scientists in these areas were trained by them or followed in their footsteps.
David Mumford and Wentsun Wu both started their careers in pure mathematics (algebraic geometry and topology respectively) but each then made a substantial move towards applied mathematics in the direction of computer science.
Mumford worked on computer aspects of vision and Wu on computer proofs in the field of Geometry. In both cases their pioneering contributions to research and in the development of the field were outstanding. Many leading scientists in these areas were trained by them or followed in their footsteps.
David Mumford (b. 1937) is currently a professor in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, USA. He studied at Harvard College in 1957 and gained his PhD at Harvard University in 1961. After graduation, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University in 1967 and, ten years later, he became Higgins Professor. He was Chair of the Mathematics Department at Harvard from 1981 to 1984 and MacArthur Fellow from 1987 to 1992.
Professor Mumford is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected President of the International Mathematical Union from 1995 to 1999.
Wentsun Wu (b. 1919) is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Science and a Fellow of the Academy of Science for the Developing World, Italy. He is presently the Honorary Director and Researcher of the Institute of Systems Science, Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.
He graduated from the Shanghai Jiaotong University, China in 1940 and attained his PhD at the National Centre of Scientific Research of France in 1949. He received the first State Supreme Science and Technology Award of the Chinese government in 2000 in recognition of his achievements in mathematics research, both in pure mathematics and in mathematics mechanization.
