Celebrating a Niels Bohr professorship

With six new Niels Bohr professors the Danish National Research Foundation contributes to the internationalization of Danish research. The purpose of the Niels Bohr program is to enrich the Danish research environment with first class researchers from abroad. The program has also made it possible to "call" home unique Danish researchers who have chosen a career abroad.

The UCPH Department of Mathematical Sciences has thus been able to pull Professor Lars Hesselholt home from Nagoya University in Japan. Lars is married to a Japanese, and the first western mathematician who has been permanently employed at professor level in Japan.

There has been allocated a total of 167 million DKK to support the six professorships, and the Niels Bohr professors will the next five years spend between 50 and 100 percent of their time in the Danish research environments.

Arithmetic research front

Lars Hesselholt is originally trained in topology - the area of mathematics exploring symmetries and deformations - but is today an international top researcher in another area in mathematics, the arithmetic. Arithmetic explores the mysteries of numbers with geometric methods.

Arithmetic geometry is an extremely important area of modern mathematical research. While this field internationally is very active and reputable, it is not represented at Danish universities. It is one of the main objectives of the Niels Bohr professorship to establish arithmetic geometry as a strong and active research area at University of Copenhagen.

International research team

With the Niels Bohr professorship follows 30 million DKK. The grant runs from April 2013 to March 2018. So far, the following researchers are attached:

• Ib Madsen, professor, three years from January 2014
• Fabien Pazuki, associate professor, from August 2014
• Christopher Davis, postdoc, 1 year from July 2013
• Dustin Clausen, postdoc, 3 years from August 2013
• Amalie Høgenhaven, PhD student, 3 years from September 2013

Reception in the library

The celebration started in Auditorium 4 at 10:15 with director Thomas Sinkjær from the Danish National Research Foundation, followed by Dean John Renner Hansen. Head of Department Erik Kjær Pedersen talked about the department’s framework for future research, and Professor Ib Madsen outlined the professorship’s research objectives.

Afterwards there were a reception in the Mathematical Library, which has been renovated and remodeled, with study places for all students in HCØ Complex. The official opening of the new library was marked along with the reception.

Refreshments were served - probably for the first and last time in the library...

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