An International Mathematician for ICTP

Just in time for ICTP's 50th anniversary, the Mathematics section is pleased to welcome Don Zagier, one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany, as an ICTP Distinguished Staff Associate.

Zagier, who first visited ICTP five years ago for a conference which he helped to organise, is thrilled to be affiliated with an institute he has come to like more and more over the years.  "It's a very wonderful place to do work, but above all the kind of special mission here, the idea that it's not an institute like all others, is attractive," Zagier said, adding that he loved the idea of encouraging science in the developing world. "Mathematically, this is a very interesting place.  Mathematics here is becoming very strong, physics has been strong for decades, and there's beginning to be more and more interaction.  That does not happen everywhere.  Here, it's automatic because we're all in the same place."

In the past, Zagier, a number theorist who has also done work in topology, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics, has collaborated with many mathematicians and physicists, including two members of the Mathematics section, department head Fernando Villegas and Lothar Göttsche, and physicist Atish Dabholkar, who will join the ICTP staff as a research scientist in November.  He looks forward to renewing these collaborations as well as working with other mathematicians and physicists at ICTP and SISSA.  As a Distinguished Staff Associate, Zagier will also teach graduate courses and hopes to co-advise ICTP-SISSA doctoral students.

Zagier is no stranger to holding multiple positions in different countries.  Throughout his mathematical career, he has served as a professor in Germany while simultaneously holding a second chair at the University of Maryland in the United States, then at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and finally at the College de France.  His joint positions at the Max Planck and ICTP continue his career as a truly international mathematician.  An American by birth who completed his undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics at MIT at the age of 16 and defended his doctorate at 20, he has since spent most of his life in different countries throughout Europe.  "I hope my association with ICTP is an attractive proposition for the institute, because they're very international and so I think they want people here who feel that they're citizens of the world and care about what happens in other countries," Zagier said.

As a new member of ICTP, Zagier was excited to attend the Centre's recent 50th anniversary celebrations.  "I absolutely wanted to be a part of it," said Zagier, who gave a talk during a morning mathematics session on the final day of the conference.  "They had excellent mathematicians, and both the people and the talks were of high quality.  There was a lot of real science and real discussion, and I thought that it was an impressive event and also went extremely well," Zagier said.

Now that the 50th anniversary is over, Zagier has already begun co-teaching a graduate course with Fernando Villegas, and Zagier and his wife are settling into their new second home in Trieste.  "We're beginning to feel like Triestini, and we just love it - the city, the institute, the country, everything," Zagier said.