by David Aldous
Professor

At a ceremony on January 10, 2000, the 1999 Loève Prize was awarded by Professor Lucien Le Cam to Professor Alain-Sol Sznitman from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Professor Erwin Bolthausen (University of Zurich) gave a talk describing the highlights of Professor Sznitman's work, and the afternoon ended with an elegant reception at the Womens Faculty Club.

Michel Loève was Professor in the Statistics Department from 1948 until his untimely death in 1979. He was a distinguished scholar working in probability theory. Shortly before her own death in 1992, his widow Line made a sizable bequest to Berkeley to establish both the Prize and, separately, a Loève Fellowship fund which supports graduate students working in subjects related to probability. The Prize is awarded every two years, to the person under age 45 whose total research accomplishment is most significant, as judged by an international committee of reknowned probabilists. The Prize consists of about $30,000 and a citation.

Professor Sznitman is best known for his work in two areas. His early work on ``propagation of chaos" deals with statistical physics models of interacting particles, where the overall density of particles changes according to some differential equation while individual particles behave randomly and almost independently. Subsequently he worked on random motion amongst traps. Here long-run survival probabilities depend on two effects; one can survive by moving unusually slowly, or by reaching a region with unusually few traps. Studying the interplay between these effects requires intricate analysis. This area was summarized in his 1998 book ``Brownian motion, obstacles and random media".

Professor Alain-Sol Sznitman

Professor Sznitman flanked by Loève Prize Committee Chair Lucien Le Cam and presenter Erwin Bolthausen.

An appreciative Sznitman with Le Cam upon receipt of Loève Prize plaque and cash prize.

Professor Sznitman with wife and son, Lucien Le Cam and Erwin Bolthausen.