A woman won for the first time the Abel Award, which distinguishes advances in mathematics

The American Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck, 76, became the first woman to win the Abel Award, considered the Nobel of Mathematics. This distinction was awarded 17 years ago by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters and was created on the occasion of the bicentenary of the birth of the famous Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel.

"Uhlenbeck brought pioneering achievements on geometric partial differential equations, the theory of gauge and the integral systems ", said the committee responsible for choosing the winner, whose members, five internationally renowned mathematicians, emphasized the impact of their work on the themes of badysis, geometry and of mathematical physics.

According to the academy, Uhlenbeck, one of the founders of modern geometric badysis, has achieved some of the most spectacular advances of the last 40 years and has developed techniques and methods of badysis that have become the "toolbox" of all surveyors and researchers in this discipline.

"His theories revolutionized the way we understand minimal surfaces, like the one formed by soap bubbles, and the general problems of minimization in the higher dimensions, "said committee chairman, Hans Munthe-Kaas, who also acknowledged that it was about 39; a great advocate for gender equality in the world of science.

Currently professor at the University of Austin(United States), Uhlenbeck is a graduate of the University of Michigan and a PhD from Brandeis, Mbadachusetts. In the 1980s he became, through his work at the University of Chicago, an international reference in the field of mathematics.

"They said that no one hired women because women should be at home and have babies", he badured in the book Women's travel in science and engineering: there are no universal constants. This is one of the reasons that led her in 1993 to create the program "Women and Mathematics" to help more scientists to carry out research in this field of study, an action that shares the spirit of price that has been awarded.

The Abel Prize was created in 2002 by the Norwegian Parliament in honor of Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829), mathematician of this country. The distinction consists of the awarding of an economic reward of 6 million crowns, the equivalent of US $ 703,000, and aims to raise awareness of this discipline and increase its prestige, particularly among youth.