Family, friends and colleagues gathered in the Provost’s Saloon this week to celebrate the success of Prof. Samson Shatashvili on receiving the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics. 

Established in 1959, the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics recognises outstanding publications in the field of mathematical physics, and is awarded to one recipient annually. Previous recipients of the award include Stephen Hawking and several Nobel prize winners such as Murray Gell-Mann.

Prof. Shatashvili, who is the Director of the Trinity Hamilton Mathematics Institute, became the 2025 recipient of the prize for ‘clever use of various techniques in studying symmetry in quantum field theory, in particular, for work with L. Faddeev on anomalies, with C. Vafa on exceptional holonomy compactifications of superstrings, and for the co-discovery of Bethe/gauge correspondence between supersymmetric vacua and quantum integrability.’* 

At the reception on Tuesday, Linda spoke of Samson’s huge intellectual curiosity and his passionate knowledge on a wide range of topics from complex mathematical theory to the history of Trinity. Besides his breadth of expertise, what is clear about Samson, Linda added, is his commitment to basic, fundamental research. It was fitting, she said, that this commitment is now acknowledged with such a prestigious award.  

Read more about Samson and his work on the Trinity website. 

* https://www.aps.org/funding-recognition/prize/dannie-heineman