The Russian-American Science Association (RASA-America, Russian-American Science Association) has announced the names of the winners of the prize, which is traditionally awarded to members of the Russian-speaking scientific diaspora. This year they were Professor Ekaterina Zhuravskaya of the Paris School of Economics and Professor Vladimir Vapnik of Columbia University .
The prize for outstanding contribution to science, as well as for efforts to promote international co-operation and the preservation of Russian cultural heritage has been awarded since 2015. It is named after Georgy Gamov, an outstanding Soviet and American physicist and populariser of science, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
This year the prize was awarded to:
Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Professor at the Paris School of Economics – “for research that has made a significant contribution to understanding the functioning of institutions, including in transition economies, especially aspects related to the political economy and economics of the media industry“;
Vladimir Vapnik, Professor at Columbia University, “for fundamental research in statistical learning theory, especially the development of one of the most popular machine learning methods, known as support vector methods, which laid the foundation for modern data science”.
– I am honoured to receive the Georgi Gamov Prize. His life and career are a tremendous source of inspiration for Russian-speaking scientists around the world and remind us that science knows no boundaries. I thank RASA-USA for recognising my contribution to science and hope that the 2024 Gamov Prize will inspire new interdisciplinary research in the social sciences,” said Ekaterina Zhuravskaya.
– I believe that the Georgi Gamow Prize is particularly noteworthy given the achievements of the scientific community it represents,” added Vladimir Vapnik.
Info
Ekaterina Zhuravskaya is a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1999. She has made significant contributions to the understanding of how political institutions, media and economic policy influence social processes. Her work on the political effects of mass media, including social networks, on the origins of ethnic conflict (as well as on political-economic history, corruption and decentralisation) has received numerous awards such as the CNRS Silver Medal, the Birgit Grodal Prize and membership of the Econometric Society. Co-editor of the American Economic Review.
Vladimir Vapnik is a professor at Columbia University, mathematician and computer scientist. He has made important contributions to the theory of machine learning by developing a statistical theory of dependency recovery from empirical data (Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory), which justifies the principle of minimising empirical risk. He is also a co-author of the support vector method and support vector clustering algorithms. He received his PhD and then worked at the Institute of Management Problems in Moscow. In 1990, he moved to the United States to AT&T Bell Labs. Later he worked at NEC Laboratories, and more recently at Facebook AI Research and Columbia University. He was inducted into the US National Academy of Engineering in 2006. Winner of several international awards, including the Kolmogorov Medal.
The Gamov Prize was established in 2015. In different years, its laureates have been Alexander Kabanov, Vladimir Zelman, Vera Serganova, Andrei Zorin and others. This year the Gamow Prize Committee was headed by Professor Alexander Tropsha.
The award ceremony will take place during the XV Annual Conference of the Russian American Science Association (RASA), which will be held on 16-17 November 2024 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will be dedicated to the 130th anniversary of physicist and Nobel laureate Pyotr Kapitsa.
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Editors 22.10.2024