First Calderón Prize

Abstract

The Inverse Problems International Association (IPIA) awarded the first Calderón Prize to Matti Lassas for his outstanding contributions to the field of inverse problems, especially in geometric inverse problems.The Calderón Prize is given to a researcher under the age of 40 who has made distinguished contributions to the field of inverse problems broadly defined. The first Calderón Prize Committee consisted of Professors Adrian Nachman, Lassi Päivärinta, William Rundell (chair), and Michael Vogelius. William Rundell For the Calderón Prize Committee The ceremony awarding the Calderón Prize. Matti Lassas is on the left. He and William Rundell are on the right. Photos by P Stefanov. Brief Biography of Matti LassasMatti Lassas was born in 1969 in Helsinki, Finland, and studied at the University of Helsinki. He finished his Master's studies in 1992 in three years and earned his PhD in 1996. His PhD thesis, written under the supervision of Professor Erkki Somersalo was entitled `Non-selfadjoint inverse spectral problems and their applications to random bodies'. Already in his thesis, Matti demonstrated a remarkable command of different fields of mathematics, bringing together the spectral theory of operators, geometry of Riemannian surfaces, Maxwell's equations and stochastic analysis. He has continued to develop all of these branches in the framework of inverse problems, the most remarkable results perhaps being in the field of differential geometry and inverse problems. Matti has always been a very generous researcher, sharing his ideas with his numerous collaborators. He has authored over sixty scientific articles, among which a monograph on inverse boundary spectral problems with Alexander Kachalov and Yaroslav Kurylev and over forty articles in peer reviewed journals of the highest standards. To get an idea of the wide range of Matti's interests, it is enough to say that he also has three US patents on medical imaging applications. Matti is currently professor of mathematics at Helsinki University of Technology, where he has created his own line of research with young talented researchers around him. He is a central person in the Centre of Excellence in Inverse Problems Research of the Academy of Finland. Previously, Matti Lassas has won several awards in his home country, including the prestigious Vaisala price of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters in 2004. He is a highly esteemed colleague, teacher and friend, and the Great Diving Beetle of the Finnish Inverse Problems Society (http://venda.uku.fi/research/FIPS/), an honorary title for a person who has no fear of the deep. Erkki Somersalo