The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) is an international scientific organization formed in 1990 to increase the visibility and influence of the
combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors conferences, publishes a bulletin and awards a number of medals, including the Euler, Hall, Kirkman, and Stanton Medals. It is based in
Duluth, Minnesota
, settlement_type = City
, nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City
, motto =
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...
and its operation office is housed at
University of Minnesota Duluth
The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) is a public university in Duluth, Minnesota. It is part of the University of Minnesota system and offers 16 bachelor's degrees in 88 majors, graduate programs in 25 different fields, and a two-year progr ...
.
The institute was minimally active between 2010 and 2016 and resumed its full activities in March 2016.
Membership
The ICA has over 800 members in over forty countries.
Membership is at three levels. ''Members'' are those who have not yet completed a
Ph.D
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...
. ''Associate Fellows'' are younger members who have received the Ph.D. or have published extensively; normally an Associate Fellow should hold the rank of
Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada.
Overview
This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and general ...
. ''Fellows'' are expected to be established scholars and typically have the rank of
Associate Professor
Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''.
Overview
In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...
or higher.
Some members are involved in highly theoretical research; there are members whose primary interest lies in education and instruction; and there are members who are heavily involved in the applications of
combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many appl ...
in statistical design,
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
s theory,
cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...
,
computer security
Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...
, and other practical areas.
Although being a fellow of the ICA is not itself a highly selective honor, the ICA also maintains another class of members, "honorary fellows", people who have made "pre-eminent contributions to combinatorics or its applications". The number of living honorary fellows is limited to ten at any time. The deceased honorary fellows include
H. S. M. Coxeter
Harold Scott MacDonald "Donald" Coxeter, (9 February 1907 – 31 March 2003) was a British and later also Canadian geometer. He is regarded as one of the greatest geometers of the 20th century.
Biography
Coxeter was born in Kensington t ...
,
Paul Erdős
Paul Erdős ( hu, Erdős Pál ; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in ...
,
Haim Hanani
Haim Hanani ( as Chaim Chojnacki– 8 April 1991) was a Polish-born Israeli mathematician, known for his contributions to combinatorial design theory, in particular for the theory of pairwise balanced designs and for the proof of an existenc ...
,
Bernhard Neumann
Bernhard Hermann Neumann (15 October 1909 – 21 October 2002) was a German-born British-Australian mathematician, who was a leader in the study of group theory.
Early life and education
After gaining a D.Phil. from Friedrich-Wilhelms Universit ...
,
D. H. Lehmer
Derrick Henry "Dick" Lehmer (February 23, 1905 – May 22, 1991), almost always cited as D.H. Lehmer, was an American mathematician significant to the development of computational number theory. Lehmer refined Édouard Lucas' work in the 1930s and ...
,
Leonard Carlitz
Leonard Carlitz (December 26, 1907 – September 17, 1999) was an American mathematician. Carlitz supervised 44 doctorates at Duke University and published over 770 papers.
Chronology
* 1907 Born Philadelphia, PA, USA
* 1927 BA, University ...
,
Robert Frucht
Robert Wertheimer Frucht (later known as Roberto Frucht) (9 August 1906 – 26 June 1997) was a German-Chilean mathematician; his research specialty was graph theory and the symmetries of graphs.
Education and career
In 1908, Frucht's family mo ...
,
E. M. Wright
Sir Edward Maitland Wright (13 February 1906, Farnley – 2 February 2005, Reading) was an English mathematician, best known for co-authoring ''An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers'' with G. H. Hardy.
Career
He was born in Farnl ...
, and
Horst Sachs
Horst Sachs (27 March 1927 – 25 April 2016) was a German mathematician, an expert in graph theory, a recipient of the Euler Medal (2000).
He earned the degree of Doctor of Science (Dr. rer. nat.) from the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Witt ...
.
Living honorary fellows include
S. S. Shrikhande
Sharadchandra Shankar Shrikhande (19 October 1917 – 21 April 2020) was an Indian mathematician with notable achievements in combinatorial mathematics. He was notable for his breakthrough work along with R. C. Bose and E. T. Parker in their di ...
,
C. R. Rao
Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao FRS (born 10 September 1920), commonly known as C. R. Rao, is an Indian-American mathematician and statistician. He is currently professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and Research Professor at the Un ...
,
G. J. Simmons,
Vera Sós
Vera may refer to:
Names
*Vera (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
*Vera (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name)
**Vera (), archbishop of the archdiocese of Tarrag ...
,
Henry Gould,
Carsten Thomassen Carsten Thomassen may refer to:
* Carsten Thomassen (mathematician)
* Carsten Thomassen (journalist)
Carsten Thomassen (15 May 1969 – 14 January 2008) was a Norway, Norwegian journalist, political commentator and war correspondent for the Norw ...
, and
Neil Robertson
Neil Robertson (born 11 February 1982) is an Australian professional snooker player who is a former world champion and former world number one. The only Australian to have won a ranking event, he is also the only player from outside the United ...
.
Publication
The ICA publishes the ''Bulletin of the ICA'' (), a journal that combines publication of survey and research papers with news of members and accounts of future and past conferences. It appears three times a year, in January, May and September and usually consists of 128 pages.
Beginning in 2017, the research articles in the ''Bulletin'' have been made available on an
open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
basis.
Medals
The ICA awards the Euler Medals annually for distinguished career contributions to combinatorics by a member of the institute who is still active in research. It is named after the 18th century mathematician
Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...
.
The ICA awards the Hall Medals, named after
Marshall Hall, Jr., to recognize outstanding achievements by members who are not over age 40.
The ICA awards the Kirkman Medals, named after
Thomas Kirkman
Thomas Penyngton Kirkman FRS (31 March 1806 – 3 February 1895) was a British mathematician and ordained minister of the Church of England. Despite being primarily a churchman, he maintained an active interest in research-level mathematics, a ...
, to recognize outstanding achievements by members who are within four years past their Ph.D.
The winners of the medals for the years between 2010 and 2015 were decided by the ICA Medals Committee between November 2016 and February 2017
after the ICA resumed its activities in 2016.
In 2016, the ICA voted to institute an ICA medal to be known as the Stanton Medal, named after
Ralph Stanton
Ralph Gordon Stanton (21 October 1923 – 21 April 2010) was a Canadian mathematician, teacher, scholar, and pioneer in mathematics and computing education. As a researcher, he made important contributions in the area of discrete mathematics; and a ...
, in recognition of substantial and sustained contributions, other than research, to promoting the discipline of combinatorics. The Stanton Medal honours significant lifetime contributions to promoting the discipline of combinatorics through advocacy, outreach, service, teaching and/or mentoring. At most one medal per year is to be awarded, typically to a Fellow of the ICA.
List of Euler Medal winners
List of Hall Medal winners
List of Kirkman Medal winners
List of Stanton Medal winners
References
External links
Official Website
{{authority control
Mathematical societies
Organizations established in 1990
Organizations based in Winnipeg
Mathematics awards