The prize citation states that Professor Hirachi is being honored "for his deep work on the singularities of the Bergman and Szego kernels and their relationship to CR geometry. Hirachi's work employs a wide range of tools in geometry and analysis, including several complex variables, the complex Monge-Ampere equation, microlocal analysis, parabolic invariant theory, explicit computations, and computer algebra packages."
Kengo Hirachi received his Dr.Sci. in 1994 from Osaka University. The advisor for his doctoral dissertation was Gen Komatsu. Hirachi's honors include the Takebe Senior Prize (1999) and the Geometry Prize (2003), both given by the Mathematical Society of Japan.
The Bergman Prize honors the memory of Stefan Bergman, best known for his research in several complex variables, as well as the Bergman projection and the Bergman kernel function that bear his name. A native of Poland, he taught at Stanford University for many years and died in 1977 at the age of 82. He was an AMS member for 35 years. When his wife died, the terms of her will stipulated that funds should go toward a special prize in her husband's honor.
The AMS was asked by Wells Fargo Bank of California, the managers of the Bergman Trust, to assemble a committee to select recipients of the prize. In addition the Society assisted Wells Fargo in interpreting the terms of the will to assure sufficient breadth in the mathematical areas in which the prize may be given. Awards are made every one or two years in the following areas: (1) the theory of the kernel function and its applications in real and complex analysis; and (2) function-theoretic methods in the theory of partial differential equations of elliptic type with attention to Bergman's operator method.
Find out more about AMS prizes at http://www.ams.org/prizes-awards.
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