A Romanian mathematician is among the 13 scholars who will get yearly USD 100,000 research scholarships from the Simons Foundation in the US. Daniel Tătaru from Berkley-California University is among the 13 Simons Investigators this year. “The Simons Investigators program provides a stable base of support for outstanding scientists, enabling them to undertake long-term study of fundamental questions,” according to the foundation created by Jim and Marilyn Simons in 1994.

Romania's Tataru was included in the list of finalists for this scholarship for his work on nonlinear waves, which has been deep and influential, according to the foundation. “He proved difficult well-posedness and regularity results for many new classes of equations. This includes geometric evolutions such as wave and Schrödinger maps, quasilinear wave equations, some of which are related to general relativity, as well as other physically relevant models,” writes the foundation on its website. Tataru is one of the four mathematicians awarded with the scholarship, which also went to computers scientists and physicists.

A Simons Investigator is appointed for an initial period of five years with possible renewal for a further five years. An Investigator will receive research support of USD 100,000 per year, with an additional USD 10,000 per year provided to the Investigator’s department. The Investigator’s institution will receive 20 percent for indirect costs, according to the Simons Foundation.

James Harris "Jim" Simons is an American hedge fund manager, mathematician, and philanthropist who founded Renaissance Technologies in 1982, a private hedge fund investment company based in New York with over USD 15 billion under management.

Daniel Tataru, from Piatra Neamt in Northern Romania, has been a professor at Berkeley since 2001, after nine years as associate professor and professor at Northwestern University and IAS/Princeton University. Tataru, who holds a PhD from the University of Virginia and a Diploma in Mathematics from the University Alexandru Ioan Cuza in Iasi, Romania, likes to play soccer, as well as hiking and mountain biking, and is also a passionate bridge player.

He focuses on the broad area of nonlinear dispersive equations, with connections to harmonic analysis, geometry, theoretical physics and fluid dynamics. Tataru is the 2001 recipient of the Bôcher Prize from the American Mathematical Society, and a honorary member of the Simion Stoilow Institute of Mathematics in Bucharest.

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