“Part of my work as a professor is the upbringing of young mathematicians who will contribute to society in ways I cannot even imagine”

Recognized with the 16th BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences, Yakov Eliashberg reflects in this interview on his decisive contributions to symplectic geometry and contact topology. In an approachable tone, he explains how these fields make it possible to understand the deep structure of space and the dynamics that govern it, and reflects on the creativity and intuition that drive mathematical work. His testimony reveals a career shaped by perseverance and by the pursuit of an intellectual beauty that connects ideas which at first glance may seem distant.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category has gone in this sixteenth edition to Professors Claire Voisin and Yakov Eliashberg, “for their outstanding contributions to two faces of geometry, algebraic and symplectic.”