Pius XI Medal Awarded to Peter Scholze

Peter Scholze, director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics and professor at the University of Bonn, was awarded the Pius XI Gold Medal 2020 by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The medal is awarded every two years to a young scientist under the age of 45, chosen for his or her exceptional promise. After Luis A. Caffarelli (1988), Laure Saint-Raymond (2004), and Cédric Villani (2014), Peter Scholze is only the fourth mathematician to receive this honor.

Peter Scholze was born in 1987. Studies of Mathematics at the University of Bonn, Master 2010, PhD 2012. Clay Research Fellow 2011-2016. Chancellor's Professor, UC Berkeley, Fall 2014. Hausdorff Chair, University of Bonn, since October 2012. Scientific Member and Director, MPI for Mathematics, since July 2018. Awards (selection): 2014 Clay Research Award, 2015 Ostrowski Prize, 2016 Leibniz Prize of the DFG, 2018 Fields Medal, 2019 Great Cross of Merit of Germany, 2022 Foreign Member of the Royal Society.

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is the only supranational academy of sciences in the world. Founded in Rome in 1603 as the first exclusively scientific academy in the world with the name Linceorum Academia, to which Galileo Galilei was appointed member in 1610, it was reestablished in 1847 by Pius IX with the name Pontificia Accademia dei Nuovi Lincei. It was moved to its current headquarters in the Vatican Gardens in 1922, and given its current name and statutes by Pius XI in 1936. Its mission is to honor pure science wherever it may be found, ensure its freedom, and encourage research for the progress of science. Its 80 Pontifical Academicians are appointed for life by the Holy Father following proposals by the academic body and chosen without any form of ethnic or religious discrimination from the most eminent scientists and scholars of the mathematical and experimental sciences of every country of the world.

(Source: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Photo credit: Barbara Frommann)