Thematic Institutes : The Particle Accelerators of Mathematics
by Tom Salisbury
KEN DAVIDSON AND BRADD HART recruited me to be
Deputy Director of the Fields Institute in 2003 . I served for a year under Ken and two years under Barbara Keyfitz , stepping down in 2006 prior to starting as Canadian Mathematical Society ( CMS ) President . I had spent time at Fields before , while on sabbatical leave in 1997 – 98 and as one of the organizers of the Probability thematic program in 1998 – 99 . Since my time as Deputy Director , I have been involved in one of the Fields start-ups , the
15To ensure unbiased representation , the
Fields Institute Director changes every 3-5 years .
Quantitative Wealth Management Analytics Group ( QWeMA ), and I am currently back in a different role , as Associate Director for Industry Liaison .
Three very successful thematic year-long programs ran while I was deputy director : on partial differential equations ; string theory ( jointly with the Perimeter Institute ); and renormalization / holomorphic dynamics . Planning also took place for the two following years ’ programs . These thematic programs are the Institute ’ s flagship activity , shining a bright light on a topic ripe for special
16Fields call for program proposals is open to anyone anywhere in the world . attention , and providing an opportunity for a critical mass of researchers to move their field forward in a way that would not otherwise happen . Thematic institutes are the particle accelerators of mathematics , except that what we bring together and collide are mathematicians . They work because , unlike laboratory scientists , mathematicians are portable — they can work anywhere .
These programs are a transformative experience for the group of post-docs who attend them . I know during my own thematic program in probability , the network our post-docs established during their time at Fields had a major impact on their post-Fields careers . It is inspiring to see young researchers and post-docs eagerly working together at a blackboard long after the Institute has closed for the day ! Bringing the world ’ s leading researchers to Fields , where they interact with the Canadian research community , raises all our games . I know my own department has been able to achieve more , and to recruit outstanding people , because of the presence of the Fields Institute . … The following Fields story was told to me by Wendelin Werner . He and Greg Lawler were in an upstairs office at Fields , as participants at a 1999 conference ( that year ’ s Seminar on Stochastic Processes ), when they received an e-mail from Oded Schramm sharing a construction of a new conformally invariant random process , now called SLE . Those who know this subject will recognize that this means there is an important Fields Institute chapter in the work that eventually led to Wendelin ’ s 2006 Fields medal . ... In addition to its flagship thematic and focus programs , the array of conferences and workshops it organizes as general scientific activity , and its support for mathematical education , the Fields Institute has a long-running program in commercial and industrial mathematics ( CIM ). I ’ ve worked on that program for the past year , as Associate Director for Industry Liaison , having taken this over from Huaxiong Huang when he became Deputy Director of the Institute .
The basic goal of this program is to stimulate useful conversations and interactions between academic researchers and practitioners from the private sector . Fields has successfully done this in the finance industry for years , in part because the many mathematicians working in that sector make those conversations quite natural . The CIM program ’ s goal is to continue doing that , and to replicate this success in some of the other fields where mathematics can be applied . … We also try to develop relationships between firms and individual researchers . Sometimes these arise from the problem solving workshops mentioned above , where a workshop problem leads naturally to an ongoing research project or internship . Sometimes this develops internally , from one of the startup firms Fields incubates . In other cases , we have a conversation with an outside firm and then try to identify a researcher who might be able to help . With the other Institutes , we are attempting to do this on a national level through the website solutionscanada . com . We also work with Mitacs to expedite mathematically oriented internships .
It turns out that many firms can make use of mathematics , and many mathematicians are interested in doing some work with industry , or in exposing their students to internships . Fields is helping make these connections . �
17The Fields Institute has a start-up program that
has turned out successful names like Sigma Analysis & Management and R 2 Financial Technologies .
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