Academician Shing-Tung Yau was awarded the 2010 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics on February 1 “for his work in geometric analysis that has had a profound and dramatic impact on many areas of geometry and physics.” The Wolf Prize in Mathematics is often considered to compete with the Abel Prize as the closest equivalent to a Nobel Prize in mathematics.

Academician Yau shares this year’s Mathematics Prize with Professor Dennis Sullivan of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Academician Yau is the William Casper Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. During his career, Academician Yau has made major contributions to the field of mathematics. He is most well known for the work that led to Calabi–Yau manifolds, which according to quantum mechanical String Theory are the basic building blocks of the universe.

Academician Yau was born in Guangdong Province in China. He later moved to Hong Kong and studied mathematics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1969 he moved to UC Berkeley where he was awarded a PhD in just two years. After short stints at Princeton and Stanford Universities, he arrived at Harvard in 1987 where he has been a professor in the Department of Mathematics ever since. He was made an Academician of Academia Sinica in 1984.

Academician Yau has received numerous awards and honors during his career, notably the Fields Medal in 1982, the Crafoord Prize in 1994, and the US National Medal of Science in 1997.

The Wolf Foundation is a private not-for-profit organization based in Israel. It awards prizes in six different categories to “outstanding scientists and artists irrespective of nationality, race, color, religion, sex or political views for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples.” The Foundation was founded by German-born inventor and former Cuban ambassador to Israel Ricardo Wolf and his wife Francisca S. Wolf in 1976, and awards prizes most years. The 2010 Wolf Prize Award Ceremony will take place in May.