The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 94

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Walter Craig
by the number, quality, and breadth of the spectrum of its
activities. It is and has been a pleasure and an honour to be
associated with it over the years.
Fields Institute Visiting Member
My first contact with the Fields Institute was as an occasional
visitor to the Toronto Mathematics Department in the 1990s,
when I came to work with my long-term collaborator Catherine
Sulem. I remember being struck by the functional and
beautiful building and its dramatic atrium. And there were
high quality mathematical programs which I came to take
part in from time to time. I remember one in particular on
micro-local analysis and spectral theory that attracted a stellar
international crowd. The Toronto department was housed in
Sydney Smith Hall at that time, which is more distant from
the Institute than its current location in Bahen Centre, and it
was less common than it is now for department members to
frequent Fields; we were among the few to regularly make the
short trek. This situation has now definitely changed.
These impressions were strongly in my mind when I was
offered a Canada Research Chair at McMaster University
in 2000; it is clear to me that the presence of the Fields
Institute, the resources that it offers to the mathematical
sciences community, and its potential for the future, played an
important role in the decision of my wife, Deidre Haskell, and
me to accept. Bradd Hart was the Institute’s Acting Director
at the time, and part of the deal involved being offered a
visiting membership position, including access to shared office
space—something that I have retained and value because it
helps me keep my scientific horizons broad and provides a
place to collaborate with non-McMaster colleagues. This is a
benefit that is available to any mathematician faculty member
of a Principal Supporting University (PSU), and I recommend
taking advantage of it.