On October 30, the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton announced the 2024 Salem Prize recipients in Mathematics. Research Associate Professor Wang Yilin, 33, is one of two young mathematicians to receive the award. According to Sohu , Yilin is the only female Chinese mathematician to receive the Salem Prize. Previously, Professor Tao Zhexian (in 2000) and Professor Zhan Dapeng (in 2011) also won this prize.

The success of the research establishing the relationship between complex analysis, probability theory and mathematical physics, especially the great contribution in Teichmüller theory and Schramm-Loewner evolution theory, helped Nghe Lam receive the 2024 Salem Prize.

Commenting on Nghe Lam's research, Professor Dao Triet Hien (Terence Tao) - Chairman of the Salem Prize Scientific Council, said: "Nghe Lam has discovered many new features and methods for studying Schramm-Loewner evolution theory, which promotes important random structures in the complex plane. I look forward to Nghe Lam continuing to develop this research in the future."

To make this research successful, previously, in his doctoral thesis, Nghe Lam mentioned another concept of Loewner energy, which is to quantify the circularity of a simple plane curve. The research was conducted by Nghe Lam on a random plane curve, called Schramm-Loewner evolution, modeling 2D lattice interfaces and homomorphic field theory (CFT).

Then, Ngin Lam combined Loewner energy with hyperbolic geometry and Teichmüller theory to demonstrate the effect of Schramm-Loewner evolutionary loop (SLE) metric on Kähler manifolds in universal Teichmüller spaces.

The study shows that the results are based on SLE in a wider range of random homomorphic geometries. In the future, Nghe Lam aims to establish a correspondence between the holographic principle and random homomorphic geometries, by taking a probabilistic approach to homomorphic field theory.

Wang Yilin - Research Associate Professor of the Institute for Advanced Study. Photo source: IHÉS

Wang Yilin was born in 1991 in Shanghai (China). Graduated from Shanghai Language High School of Shanghai Foreign Studies University in 2009, Yilin went to France to study. From 2009 to 2011, Yilin studied Mathematics - Physics at Parc High School, Lyon (France).

In 2011, Nghe Lam was admitted to the Paris Superior School of Education, majoring in Applied Mathematics. Graduating in 2014, Nghe Lam studied for a master's degree in Probability and Statistics at the University of Paris-Saclay. In 2015, after receiving his master's degree, Nghe Lam went to Switzerland to study for a doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), under the guidance of Professor Wendelin Werner - the Fields Medal winner in 2006.

In 2019, after completing his doctoral program, Nghe Lam was appointed as a lecturer at CLE Moore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From January 2022 to May 2022, Nghe Lam was a postdoctoral researcher at the Simons Laufer Institute for Mathematical Sciences (MSRI).

Since June 2022, Nghe Lam has been working at the Institute for Advanced Study (IHÉS). Joining IHÉS at the age of 31, Nghe Lam became the youngest Junior Professor in the institute's history. This is also the workplace of many world-famous mathematicians who have won the Fields Medal.

The youngest female associate professor in Mathematics from Binh Dinh, studied for a master's and doctorate in just 4 years. Lecturer Tran Minh Phuong is the youngest female associate professor in Mathematics this year, currently working at Ton Duc Thang University. In just 4 years, Ms. Phuong has obtained a master's and doctorate in France.