[cmath] KATHERINE HEINRICH AND YU-RU LIU HONOURED FOR OUSTANDING ACHIEVMENTS

[Graham Wright]

For release: IMMEDIATE (September 8, 2005)

KATHERINE HEINRICH AND YU-RU LIU HONOURED FOR OUSTANDING ACHIEVMENTS

OTTAWA, Ontario    The recipient of the Canadian Mathematical Society's 
Adrien Pouliot Award for 2005 is Dr. Katherine Heinrich (University of 
Regina), and Dr. Yu-Ru Liu (University of Waterloo) is the winner of the 
2005 G. de B. Robinson Prize. The awards will be presented at the CMS 2005 
Winter Meeting Banquet on December 11th at the Empress Hotel, Victoria, 
British Columbia.

****************************************************************
CMS 2005 Adrien Pouliot Award - Dr. Katherine Heinrich, University of 
Regina
****************************************************************

The Adrien Pouliot Award is for individuals, or teams of individuals, who 
have made significant and sustained contributions to mathematics education 
in Canada

The most significant achievement of Kathy Heinrich in the area of 
mathematics education is the idea for a Canadian Mathematics Education 
Forum as a venue for people interested in mathematics education at all 
levels: mathematicians, math educators, teachers of mathematics from every 
level, representatives of school boards, ministries of education, 
industry, and parents, to meet and talk together about issues of common 
interest.

The first Forum, held in Qubec City in 1995, set the stage for many 
activities that followed. In British Columbia, Forum participants 
organized the BC Mini-forum for Education in Mathematics (December 1995). 
This event led to the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences 
"Changing the Culture" annual conference which, for the past eight years, 
has brought together people interested in math education.  In Ontario, the 
spirit of the 1995 Forum is continued with the Fields Institute 
Mathematics Education Forum.

In 2001, the Canadian Mathematical Society revived Kathy Heinrich's Forum 
concept.  The second Forum took place in Montral (hosted by UQAM) in May 
2003 and the third Forum (hosted by the Fields Institute) was held in May 
2005.  Many new initiatives have grown out of these Fora.  A new 
Canada-wide teachers' organization is being created and Canadian 
indigenous people are becoming partners in the discussions on mathematics 
education.  These Fora are on the verge of becoming an institution.

The inspiration for the 1995 Forum arose from Kathy Heinrich's significant 
involvement in mathematics education and the promotion of mathematics.  In 
1982 she organized the first Mathematics Enrichment Conference for grade 
11 students at Simon Fraser University.  This
three-day event, which continued annually for the next 15 years, provided 
inspiration to generations of British Columbia students. Kathy Heinrich 
was a co-organizer of "Women Do Math" (later renamed "Discover the 
Possibilities"), a mathematics conference designed to reach girls in 
grades 9 and 10 and a co-organizer of "Math in the Malls", a series of 
displays with hands-on activities, organized in several Vancouver area 
shopping malls in the early 1990's. She took an active role in lobbying to 
have Mathematics as a category at Canada Wide Science Fairs.  Her legacy 
of involvement in mathematics education continues to be felt across the 
country.

Dr. Katherine Heinrich received her Ph.D. in mathematics from the 
University of Newcastle, Australia, in 1979.  In 1981, she joined the 
Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Simon Fraser University as an 
Assistant Professor on a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council 
of Canada (NSERC) University Research Fellowship.  She was promoted to the 
rank of Professor in 1987 and, from 1991-1996, was Chair of the 
Department.  From 1999, she has held the position of Vice-President 
(Academic) at the University of Regina.

During the last several years Kathy Heinrich has served as a member of the 
Interim Governing Council of the University of Northern British Columbia, 
the Board of Governors of Simon Fraser University, the Youth Science 
Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Mathematical Society. She was 
President of the Canadian Mathematical Society from 1996 to 1998.  For six 
years she served as a member of the BC Science Council Awards Committee. 
Recently she was a member of an NSERC Grant Selection Committee and the 
National Killam Selection Committee. She is currently a member of the 
NSERC Council.

In 1995, she was awarded both the Vancouver YWCA Woman of Distinction 
Award in Education, Training and Development and the University of 
Newcastle Gold Medal for Professional Excellence.

Her research interests include graph factoring problems, the design and 
application of Latin squares and more generally the "mathematics of 
arrangements" that enable the construction of computer networks, 
scheduling of tournaments and secure transmission of information.

****************************************************************
CMS 2005 G. de B. Robinson Prize - Dr. Yu-Ru Liu, University of Waterloo
****************************************************************

The G. de B. Robinson Award was inaugurated to recognize the publication 
of excellent papers in the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and the 
Canadian Mathematical Bulletin and to encourage the submission of the 
highest quality papers to these journals.

The 2005 G. de B. Robinson Award is awarded to Dr. Yu-Ru Liu, University 
of Waterloo, for her two papers entitled "A Generalization of the Turan 
Theorem and its Applications", and "A Generalization of the Erdos-Kac 
Theorem and its Applications" which were published in the Canadian 
Mathematical Bulletin in 2004.

A classical theorem of Hardy and Ramanujan states that the normal number 
of prime divisors of a natural number n is log log n.  Their difficult 
proof was simplified by Turan in 1934 and was subsequently amplified by 
Erdos and Kac in their monumental creation of probabilistic number theory. 
In her two papers, Liu shows that the theorems of Turan, as well as the 
subsequent generalizations by Erdos and Kac, apply to a wider geometric 
context.  Most notable is the application to the study of points on 
varieties over finite fields.  The papers represent an elegant melange of 
probability theory, analytic number theory and algebraic geometry.

Dr. Yu-Ru Liu obtained her Bachelors degree from McGill University in 1997 
and she completed her Masters degree at Queen's University in 1998.  Under 
the direction of Barry Mazur, she completed her doctoral work at Harvard 
University in 2003.  The two papers which appeared in the Canadian 
Mathematical Bulletin in 2004 are based upon her doctoral thesis. Dr. Liu 
currently holds a University Faculty Award at the University of Waterloo.


For more information, contact:
Dr. H.E.A (Eddy) Campbell
President
Canadian Mathematical Society
(709) 737-8246 	Email: president at cms.math.ca

or

Dr. Graham Wright
Executive Director
Canadian Mathematical Society
(613) 562-5702	Email: director at cms.math.ca