Top-class young mathematics researchers recruited to Sweden

Press release
7 February 2022

Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has allocated SEK 50 million for recruitment of four pre-eminent mathematics researchers to three Swedish universities.

“In the prevailing global situation and thanks to the Foundation’s ongoing major mathematics initiative, Sweden has become attractive to leading researchers in mathematics. Combined with the general increasing competitiveness of Swedish mathematics, this has created the potential to recruit top-class researchers to Sweden, making a significant contribution to the development of Swedish research” says Peter Wallenberg Jr, Chair of Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

The four researchers are:

Paul Nelson, von Neumann Fellow at the Institute for advanced Study, Princeton University, USA. He will be conducting research over a six-year period at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. His field is analytic number theory.

Cheuk Yu Mak, postdoc at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He will be spending five years researching at Uppsala University. His field is symplectic geometry and Floer theory, and their relationship to algebraic geometry and low-dimensional topology.

Rachel Skipper, postdoc at Ohio State University, USA. She will be researching for five years at Stockholm University. Her field is group theory. 

Markus Hausmann, postdoc at the University of Bonn, Germany. He will conduct research at Stockholm University over a five-year period. His field is algebraic topology and several closely related areas.

All Swedish universities have been invited to nominate young pre-eminent mathematicians for the research positions. Göran Sandberg, the Foundation’s Executive Director, who has led the Foundation’s international evaluation process, comments:

“Our evaluations clearly show that the nominees are outstanding in their fields. The top-ranked researchers are among their generation’s foremost researchers in mathematics. The fact that several Swedish university mathematics departments have scientific environments whose international reputation is strong enough to attract the very best mathematics researchers in their fields is central to the future development of Swedish mathematics.”

The Foundation’s mathematics initiative:

In 2014 Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced a new mathematics program intended to restore Sweden to a leading international position in the field of mathematics.

During 2014–2022 the Foundation has allocated SEK 360 million under the program. A further SEK 290 million has been earmarked for the period to 2029. In total, the Foundation will have allocated SEK 650 million for the recruitment of mathematicians to Sweden, and to fund postdoc positions abroad for mathematicians at Swedish universities.

The funding of recruitment of young senior mathematics researchers to Sweden complements the program, and is available for the first time this year. In addition to funding from the Foundation, recipient universities will contribute SEK 6 million per researcher.

Contact persons:

Peter Wallenberg Jr, Chair, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation 
+46 (0)8 545 017 80
[email protected]

Göran Sandberg, Executive Director, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
+46 (0)8 545 017 80
[email protected]