Higson Named Head of Department of Mathematics

31 March 2004 — Nigel Higson, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, has been named head of the Department of Mathematics at Penn State. He succeeds Gary L. Mullen, Professor of Mathematics, who served as head of the department since 1997. "Dr. Higson personifies what our department, college, and university are trying to achieve — national and international eminence in research, a deep commitment to teaching and to our students, and a strong sense of loyalty and responsibility toward Penn State," comments Daniel J. Larson, the Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Eberly College of Science.

A specialist in the comparatively new area of noncommutative geometry, Higson has received much recognition for his research, including a Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1992, the André Aisenstadt Prize of the Center for Mathematical Research in Montreal in 1995, the Israel Halperin Prize of the Canadian Operator Symposium in 1995, and the Coxeter James Prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society in 1996. In addition, he was among the first group to be honored as Fellows of the Clay Mathematics Institute in 1999 and he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada in 2000.

Higson's specific research specialty is operator-algebra theory, a subject that has roots in the mathematical foundations of quantum theory and in Fourier analysis and that has powerful consequences in the fields of topology and geometry. His recent work focuses on the Baum-Connes conjecture, a broad program that connects operator-algebra theory to problems in other areas of mathematics. Along with Paul Baum, Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at Penn State, and Alain Connes, their coworker in Paris, Higson is responsible for the current form of the Baum-Connes conjecture.

An accomplished and popular teacher, Higson played a key role in his department's receiving its largest educational grant, which established at Penn State the program titled "Vertical Integration of Research and Education in the Mathematical Sciences" (VIGRE). This grant provided $3,000,000 over a five-year period to improve mathematical instruction at all levels. In recognition of his outstanding teaching achievements, Higson was honored at Penn State with the Eberly College of Science Student Council and Alumni Society's C. I. Noll Award in 1999 and with the University's Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2001.

He was invited to deliver plenary addresses at the meeting of the Canadian Mathematical Society in Edmonton in 1994 and at the annual meeting of the Australian Mathematical Society in Newcastle in 2002. He also was honored as an invited lecturer at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin in 1998 and as the DeLong Lecturer at the University of Colorado in 1999.

Higson earned three degrees at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia: a bachelor of arts in 1982, a master of science in 1983, and a doctorate in 1986, when he also became a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie. From 1986 to 1990, he was an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Penn State faculty as an assistant professor in 1989 and was promoted to associate professor in 1990 and to professor in 1994. He has held visiting appointments at several universities in North America and Europe, including the Stanislaw Ulam professorship at the University of Colorado in 1996. Higson was honored by Penn State with the title of Distinguished Professor of Mathematics in January 2000.

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