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James McKernan Named Simons Investigator

June 23, 2016

James McKernan

Mathematics Professor James McKernan has been named by the Simons Foundation as a Simons Investigator, an honor that will provide him with an award of $100,000 per year in research support over the next five years.

In announcing his selection as a 2016 Simons Investigator, the foundation said that “McKernan, in collaboration with Caucher Birkar, Paolo Cascini, and Christopher D. Hacon, has established one of the cornerstones of the Minimal Model Program: the finite generation of canonical rings in all dimensions.”

McKernan, who received his doctorate in mathematics from Harvard University in 1991, was a professor at UC Santa Barbara and MIT before coming to UC San Diego and currently holds the Charles Lee Powell Endowed Chair in Mathematics.

His research is focused on birational geometry and his work has been recognized by professional organizations with numerous awards: the Clay Research Award in 2007 and the Cole Prize in Algebra in 2009.  In 2011, he was elected to the Royal Society in the UK. He was also honored by being invited to and delivering a lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad in 2010.