04/09/2023

Ivan Kupka, one of IMPA's first students, has died.

One of IMPA's first students, mathematician Ivan Kupka, has died. His thesis was one of the first at the institute, published in July 1964, under the guidance of Maurício Matos Peixoto, IMPA's founder, and had international repercussions.

The theorem developed by the mathematician in the area of dynamical systems also contributed to establishing IMPA as an internationally recognized research institution.

Marcelo Viana, director-general of IMPA, recalls the importance of the work. “When I was a doctoral student, the Kupka-Smale theorem was one of the first and most important we studied, and it is still taught today in our Dynamical Systems courses.”

For Viana, the mathematician was one of his greatest inspirations. “Having been one of the first PhD graduates from IMPA and due to the impact of his thesis in the field, Kupka was a living example of what we could also achieve as students and, later, as researchers. This was an important source of inspiration and motivation for many of us.”

Kupka was a professor and later professor emeritus at Pierre and Marie Curie University, now Sorbonne University. He also made significant contributions to control theory, sub-Riemmannian geometry, partial differential equations, and other areas. He participated in the 16th Brazilian Mathematics Colloquium in 1987 and completed the advanced-level course Introduction to Systems Theory. The researcher died in April.