The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has chosen four high-profile scholars working at American institutions to receive the 2012 Crafoord Prizes for astronomy and mathematics. Each professor will receive about $590,000.
Sharing the astronomy prize are Reinhard Genzel, a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley who is also scientific director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, in Germany, and Andrea Ghez, a professor of astronomy at the University of California at Los Angeles. Sharing the prize in mathematics are Jean Bourgain, a professor of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J., and Terence Tao, a professor of mathematics at UCLA. Among other previous honors, Ms. Ghez and Mr. Tao are former MacArthur fellows, while Mr. Bourgain and Mr. Genzel have both won the Shaw Prize.
