On Thursday 3rd June Professor Karen Vogtmann was awarded a Humboldt-Forschungspreis (Humboldt Research Award) from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany.

The award is granted in recognition of a researcher's lifetime achievements to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future. Vogtmann was cited as an internationally renowned leader in the rapidly growing field of geometric group theory, who has made important contributions to our understanding of the automorphism groups of free groups. The introduction of what came to be known as Culler–Vogtmann space or “outer space” opened the way for a geometric study of these groups and their homology. In Germany, she will investigate combinatorial boundaries for outer space as well as instances of the Farrell–Jones conjecture.

Links:
Humboldt Foundation
Wikipedia article on the Humboldt Prize