Wolf Prize to be awarded to eight laureates from US, UK and Switzerland

This year, the five $100,000 prizes will be awarded to eight winners for their exceptional work in the fields of chemistry, mathematics, physics, medicine, and the arts.

By LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
Updated: JANUARY 4, 2017 01:32
Laurie Anderson (photo credit: Courtesy)
Laurie Anderson
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Winners of the prestigious Wolf Prize were announced on Tuesday and include eight laureates from three countries – the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland.
The winners were announced in a ceremony at the Land of Israel Museum in Tel Aviv in the presence of Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who chairs the Wolf Foundation; Prof. Dan Shechtman, chairman of the Wolf Foundation Council and a former prize winner; and Dr.
Liat Ben-David, executive director of the foundation.
The world-renowned prize is awarded annually to a number of laureates in the sciences and arts, and is considered second in importance to the Nobel.
This year, the five $100,000 prizes will be awarded to eight winners for their exceptional work in the fields of chemistry, mathematics, physics, medicine and the arts.
In chemistry, the prize will be awarded to Prof. Robert Bergman from the University of California-Berkeley for his discovery of the activation responses of carbon-hydrogen bonds in hydrocarbons by soluble organometallic complexes.
The prize in mathematics will be awarded to Prof. Richard Schoen from Stanford University for geometric analysis and the understanding of the interconnectedness of partial differential equations and differential geometry and to Prof. Charles Fefferman from the Princeton University in a number of areas including complex multivariate analysis, partial differential equations and sub-elliptical problems.
The prize in physics will be awarded to Prof. Michel Mayor from the University of Cambridge in the UK and the University of Geneva, and Prof.
Didier Queloz from the University of Geneva for the discovery of an extrasolar planet orbiting around a star similar to the sun.
In medicine, the prize will be awarded to Prof. James Allison from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for a revolution in cancer treatment due to the discovery of the immune control barrier.
In the arts, the prize will be awarded to Laurie Anderson and Lawrence Weiner, both from the US, for being “radical avant-garde artists” at the heart of their work and an inspiration to future artists.
The prizes will be awarded to the winners at a state ceremony at the Knesset, attended by President Reuven Rivlin, in June.
The Wolf Foundation began its activities in 1976, with an initial endowment fund of $10 million, donated by the Wolf family.