The genre of mathematics | The Abel Award was …

The Abel Prize for Mathematics has for the first time awarded a woman, American Karen Uhlenbeck, specialist in partial differential equations, announced the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters.

"Karen Uhlenbeck receives the 2019 Abel Award for her fundamental work on geometric badysis and gauge theory, which has radically transformed the mathematical landscape," said Hans Munthe-Kaas, chairman of the committee, in a statement.

"His theories have revolutionized our understanding of minimal surfaces, such as those formed by soap bubbles, and general problems of minimization in the higher dimensions," he added.

Uhlenbeck, 76, is a Visiting Research Professor at Princeton University and Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in the United States.

Born in Cleveland "has developed techniques and methods of global badysis that are currently part of the tools of all surveyors and badysts," said the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

She is also an advocate for gender equality in science and mathematics.

She is the first woman to receive the Abel Award, created in 2003 by the Norwegian Government in order to compensate for the absence of a Nobel Prize in Mathematics. It takes its name from the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829).

With six million crowns (620,000 euros), it is one of the most prestigious awards in the world in mathematics, after the Fields Medal, awarded every four years.