Merton Fellow becomes youngest winner of Ramanujan Prize

Dr Miguel Walsh, recently elected as a Special Fellow of Merton College (with effect from 1 September 2014), has been awarded the 2014 Ramanujan Prize for young mathematicians from developing countries. The award recognises his outstanding contributions to Ergodic Theory and Number Theory, and comes with a $15,000 prize.

An Argentinian, Dr Walsh obtained his Licenciatura en Matemáticas—which approximates to a Master's degree—from the University of Buenos Aires in 3½ years, and then went on to complete his doctorate in two years under the supervision of Román Sasyk. At 26 years old, Miguel Walsh is the youngest recipient to date of the Ramanujan Prize.

The prize—named after Srinivasa Ramanujan, the brilliant self-taught Indian mathematician—has been awarded annually since 2005 by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), the International Mathematical Union, and (from 2014 onwards) The Indian Department of Science and Technology. Researchers under the age of 45 working in any branch of the mathematical sciences are eligible, and the winner is invited to ICTP to receive the Prize and deliver a lecture. The Selection Committee take into account not only the scientific quality of the research, but also the background of the candidate and the environment in which the work was carried out.