PRESS RELEASES

January 2005 - The directors of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) of l'Université de Montréal, François Lalonde, and the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Barbara Keyfitz, are pleased to announce the awarding of the CRM-Fields Prize for 2005 to Professor David Boyd (University of British Columbia) in recognition of his exceptional achievement and work in analytic number theory.

The Centre de recherches mathématiques and The Fields Institute established the CRM-Fields prize in 1994 to recognize exceptional research in the mathematical sciences. The recipient is chosen by a selection committee made up of members of the Advisory Committee of the CRM and the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Fields Institute.

David Boyd, this year's recipient, is one of Canada's leading number theorists. He has made seminal contributions to analytic number theory, noteworthy among which are his explorations of the deep connections between the Mahler measure of polynomials and special values of their associated L-functions.

Professor Boyd received his B.Sc. from Carleton University in 1963, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1964 and 1966. He has taught at the University of Alberta and the California Institute of Technology, and has been at UBC since 1971 where he is currently Full Professor. He is a winner of the E.W.R. Steacie prize, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has won both the Canadian Mathematical Society's Coxeter-James and Jeffery-Williams prize lectures. His service to the Canadian mathematical community includes terms as vice-president of the Canadian Mathematical Society, chair of the NSERC Mathematics grant selection committee, and Acting Director of the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.

Previous recipients of the prize are H.S.M. (Donald) Coxeter, George A. Elliot, James Arthur, Robert V. Moody, Stephen A. Cook, Israel Michael Sigal, William T. Tutte, John B. Friedlander, John McKay, Edwin Perkins, and Donald A. Dawson.