2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
Hong Kong has announced the Shaw Prize, the "Asian Nobel Prize" awarded annually for significant discoveries in astronomy, mathematics, and biology and medicine. The 2019 award went to Edward Stone, Voyager mission leader, DNA researcher Maria Jasin, and spin glass mathematician Michel Talagrand, according to a posting on the award's website.
The award was established by media mogul and philanthropist Shao Yifu in 2002. It is a lifetime award for "scientists, regardless of race, citizenship and religious beliefs, who have made significant discoveries in academic and scientific research and development, and whose work has had a significant positive impact on humanity." The prize is awarded in three categories: astronomy, life sciences and medicine, and mathematics. Candidates are nominated by experts invited by the Shao Prize Foundation, and the selection committee consists of distinguished scientists who are respected in their respective fields of science.
This year's Astronomy Prize goes to Caltech Professor Edward Stone, who led the Voyager mission for many years. This project, which has been going on for over 40 years, "has transformed our understanding of the gas giant planets and the outer solar system and now brings us knowledge of interstellar space."
Cornell University Professor Maria Yasin has been honored with the Biology and Medicine Prize. The jury recognized her for her work in the study of DNA damage repair. Her work eventually led to the development of tools suitable for editing the mammalian genome.
The mathematician Michel Talagran of the Sorbonne was noted for his work in the study of concentration inequalities and supremums of stochastic processes, as well as for his results in the study of spin glasses.
The Shao Prize has been awarded since 2004, this year it has been awarded 16 times. In 2016, the amount of the award was increased from one million to 1.2 million dollars. The award ceremony will take place on September 25 in Hong Kong.
