TORONTO, July 4, 2017

Cédric Villani, prominent mathematician and Director of the Institut Henri Poincaré in France, was elected to the French National Assembly last month as a representative of Emmanuel Macron’s party, “La République En Marche!” Villani won 69% of the vote in the 5th constituency of Essonne, south of Paris.  

In an interview with Science Magazine, Villani said that “it is important that scientists step in and become part of the political process.”

In 2014, Villani was awarded the Fields Medal, one of the highest honours of mathematics, “for his proofs of nonlinear Landau damping and convergence to equilibrium for the Boltzmann equation.” He was honoured at the 2014 Fields Medal Symposium hosted at the Fields Institute. In the Winter 2015 issue of Fields Notes, Villani described himself as a “militant European federalist”, perhaps foreshadowing his future political career.

Villani now plans to leave his Directorship at the Institut Henri Poincaré to focus on his political duties. We wish him the best of luck in this new role. 

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