History of the Yamabe Memorial Symposium

Prof. Hidehiko Yamabe (1923--1960) was an active and highly collaborative mathematician in the School of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota from 1954 to 1960. His sudden illness and untimely death occured in the same year that he moved to Northwestern University. His work on topological groups, geometry and analysis were outstanding contributions to modern mathematics.

The Yamabe Memorial Lecture has been held for a number of years, through support from a fund created by Etsuko Yamabe and through contributions from a number of mathematicians. The lecture has been held in alternating years at the University of Minnesota and at Northwestern University. Past speakers have been Neil Trudinger, Eugenio Calabi, Rick Schoen, Shizuo Kakutani, Craig Evans, Walter Rudin, Robert Hardt, Katsumi Nomizu, Fred Gehring, Richard Hamilton, Peter Sarnak, Jeff Cheeger, Shing-Tung Yau, Terence Tao, Igor Rodnianski, Luis Caffarelli, Tai-Ping Liu, Sergiu Klainerman and Simon Brendle. This list of distinguished names has established the Yamabe Memorial Lecture as a landmark in the geography of U.S. mathematics.

The Yamabe Memorial Symposium is an enhancement of this tradition. Mathematicians will gather every two years at the University of Minnesota for a long weekend to hear geometry talks, discuss the latest research and interact with younger mathematicians. One goal will be to advance areas of mathematics related to the interests of Hidehiko Yamabe, which touched in a substantial and ground-breaking way on several quite different areas of mathematics, all of which may be roughly described as having significant geometric aspects.

The First Yamabe Memorial Symposium was held Friday - Sunday, September 20 - 22, 2002. The topic was Geometry and Analysis. Speakers were Hubert Bray, Ben Chow, Richard Hamilton, Peter Li, Fang-Hua Lin, Richard Schoen, Gang Tian and Brian White.

The Second Yamabe Memorial Symposium was held Friday - Sunday, September 17 - 19, 2004. The topic was Geometry and Physics. Speakers were Robert Bryant, Sheldon Katz, Kefeng Liu, Duong Phong, Paul Seidel, Isadore M. Singer, Karen Uhlenbeck and Shing-Tung Yau.

The Third Yamabe Memorial Symposium was held Friday - Sunday, September 15 - 17, 2006. The topic was Geometry and Symplectic Topology. Speakers were Denis Auroux, Yasha Eliashberg, Ron Fintushel, Mikio Furuta, Helmut Hofer, Dusa McDuff, Peter Ozsváth and Yongbin Ruan.

The Fourth Yamabe Memorial Symposium was held Friday - Sunday, September 26 - 28, 2008. The topic was Geometry and Analysis. Speakers were Simon Brendle, Alice Chang, Gerhard Huisken, Ngaiming Mok, Leon Simon, Yum-Tong Siu, Neil Trudinger and Burkhard Wilking.

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