09/08/2018

Thesis defended at IMPA wins the 2018 Carlos Gutierrez Prize.

Plínio Murillo: mestrado e doutorado no IMPA Foto: Marcos Arcoverde / ICM 2018

Karine Rodrigues

When the Colombian Plinio Murillo, 28, left his native country attracted by the excellence of teaching at IMPA, where he earned his master's and doctorate degrees, he repeated the trajectory of another Latin American mathematician, the Peruvian Carlos Gutierrez (1944-2008).

The two never met, but symbolically, their paths have just crossed: Plínio Murillo is the winner of the 2018 Professor Carlos Teobaldo Gutierrez Vidalon Prize, awarded to the best thesis in Mathematics defended in Brazil in the year prior to the award, based on originality and quality.

Created in 2009 by the administration of the Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences (ICMC) at the University of São Paulo (USP), the award honors the Peruvian researcher, who worked at IMPA until 1999. Afterwards, he served as a full professor at ICMC, where he contributed to the founding and organization of the research group in Dynamical Systems.

Of the ten editions of the Gutierrez Prize, which is supported by the Brazilian Mathematical Society (SBM), IMPA has won eight.

Murillo was recognized for his work "On arithmetic manifolds with large systole," supervised by Mikhail Belolipetsky. In his thesis, he studied two geometric elements—curve lengths and volume—in spaces strongly linked to number theory, known as arithmetic manifolds.

"The main goal is to calculate the explicit relationship between the volume and the shortest length of a closed curve in a particular type of these spaces," he explains, adding that he has enjoyed combining geometry and algebra since he was young.

The news surprised Murillo. “It was a pleasant surprise! I am very happy and grateful to those responsible for the award for granting me such an honor, which is not only mine, but also that of many other people who in one way or another have helped me throughout these years,” declared the researcher.

Belolipetsky celebrated the award and noted that, despite knowing Murillo's thesis was very good, he was surprised to learn that he was competing with other excellent works. "It was a pleasant surprise," he said, considering that awards like the Gutierrez Prize are important for the dissemination and visibility of academic work. "They can also be useful for young researchers in their academic careers."

IMPA's Director-General, Marcelo Viana, highlighted the honor. “The Gutiérrez Prize has already become one of the main distinctions in our academic landscape. We are very pleased with this important recognition of the quality of the work carried out by Plínio in his thesis, supervised by Misha Belolipetsky.”

Since he didn't expect to win the award, Murillo, who is in Rio for the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), had to postpone his return to Switzerland, where he is doing postdoctoral research. The ceremony will be held on August 27th at 2 PM in the Fernão Stella Rodrigues Germano auditorium at ICMC/USP, in São Carlos.