Photo by Kyle Alexander
Terence Tao, a professor of mathematics who holds the James and Carol Collins Chair in the UCLA College of Letters and Science, will be awarded the inaugural Joseph Lieberman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Mathematics from the Center for Excellence in Education (CEE), at its annual Congressional luncheon April 24 in Washington, D.C. The award honors Tao’s significant contributions to mathematics and recognizes Senator Lieberman’s more than 17 years of support of the center as a CEE Trustee.
 
Tao attended the center’s Research Science Institute (RSI), a six-week summer enrichment program emphasizing advanced theory and research in the sciences, technology, mathematics and engineering, at age 12.
 
"Terence demonstrated mathematical potential and acumen at an early age," CEE’s President Joann DiGennaro said. "He is an exemplary model of the young scholars supported by the Center’s Research Science Institute. It is an honor that this outstanding mathematician is the recipient of the Lieberman Award."
 
Tao is widely considered one of the world’s leading mathematicians. He is the first faculty member in UCLA’s history to win the prestigious Fields Medal, often described as the "Nobel Prize in mathematics." He has received numerous national and international honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship; the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the highest honor the NSF bestows; the Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. and was elected last year to the American Philosophical Society, the country’s oldest learned society, which recognizes extraordinary achievements in science, letters and the arts.
 
Tao was named among the "Best Brains in Science" by Discover magazine, which praised him as "one of the most prolific and esteemed mathematicians in the nation," and was honored as one of science’s "Brilliant 10" by Popular Science magazine, which called him "math’s great uniter," to whom "the traditional boundaries between different mathematical fields don't seem to exist." He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Australian Academy of Sciences.