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In his address to the National Press Club yesterday, Academy President Professor Kurt Lambeck said, 'I am delighted by the news that one of our members, Terence Tao, has been awarded the prestigious Fields Medal'. The Fields Medal is awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union and is often considered to be the mathematical equivalent to a Nobel Prize. Terence Tao was born in Adelaide only 31 years ago, and is the youngest member ever to be elected to the Academy. Despite his age, he has already made extraordinary contributions to the mathematical sciences. One of Professor Tao's remarkable abilities is his capacity to understand in depth, and work simultaneously across a broad range of mathematical fields. He has published in areas as diverse as statistics and number theory; however, his principal focus has been the meeting ground between harmonic analysis and nonlinear partial differential equations such as wave functions. His work on a wide variety of problems in mathematical analysis, and on the existence of arithmetic sequences of primes, has been recognised internationally by the conferring of other prestigious honours such as the Bôcher Prize in 2002 and a Clay Research Award in 2003. Professor Tao is currently a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, a position he has held since the age of 26. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of New South Wales in 2000 and an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University from 2001 to 2003. Throughout his career, he has maintained close contact with Australian mathematics and mathematicians; enriching science in this country through his striking achievements. Information Fields Medal: www.mathunion.org/medals/index.html
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