The Mathematical Association of America has presented Mike Paterson with a 2021 Paul Halmos - Lester Ford Award for an article of "expository excellence published in The American Mathematical Monthly". There were several unusual aspects to this paper: the title, "A head-ache causing problem"; the authors, "Conway, J.H., Paterson, M.S., and Moscow, U.S.S.R"; the sole reference in the paper is to itself; the main result is first disproved and then proved; and the acknowledgments make clear that Conway wrote the paper. Paterson previously received this award in 2010 (then the Lester Ford Award) for his "Overhang" article. More information can be found here.

In further good news, Dr Tanaya Guha and Dr Ramanujan Sridharan have been promoted to Associate Professor, effective from 1 July 2021 and 2 October 2021 (respectively). Many congratulations to them, whose recommendations in particular state:

[Dr Guha has] grown her research group to five PhD students currently, and attracted a portfolio of research grants in her career, including recently a substantial award from Ford. ... In engagement, Dr Guha has been raising the visibility of Warwick in her national and international research communities through her invited talks, leadership in the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing, programme committee memberships, and conference organisation activities. She has also contributed substantially to the Sutton Trust summer school, a key outreach programme.

and

Dr Sridharan’s high standing in the research community is confirmed by his invited talks at international meetings and leading universities, memberships of the programme committees of prestigious conferences, and his organisation of international research events. ... In teaching, Dr Sridharan has successfully led (jointly and individually) two undergraduate modules. The feedback from students has been generally positive, with many appreciative of Dr Sridharan’s innovative and energetic delivery.

The FoCS group Theory Workshop 2021 will take place online on June 28 (Monday).

The workshop will consists of some short talks by our PhD students and postdocs, highlighting their recent research.

For more information about the event please see

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/research/focs/activities/theory-workshop-june-2021/