The Wolf Foundation was established in 1976 by Ricardo Wolf, inventor, diplomat and philanthropist, and his wife Francisca Subirana-Wolf, "to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind."
Margulis is cited for "monumental contributions to algebra, in particular to the theory of lattices in semi-simple Lie groups, and striking applications of this to ergodic theory, representation theory, number theory, combinatorics and measure theory."
Since 1978, five or six yearly prizes, consisting of a diploma and $100,000, are awarded to outstanding living scientists and artists. In Science, the fields of award are: agriculture, chemistry, medicine, mathematics, and physics. Prize winners are selected by international committees of three renowned experts in each field. Margulis will share this year's award with Sergei P. Novikov at the University of Maryland. The presentation will take place on May 22, 2005, at the Knesset building, in Jerusalem, with the diploma and honorarium presented to the recipients by the President of the State of Israel.
"Gregory is one of very few to be honored with both the Wolf Prize and the Fields Medal for mathematics," said Andrew D. Hamilton, Yale Provost. "His accomplishments in advancing the field of algebra have been remarkable."
Born and educated in Russia, Margulis began his career at his alma mater Moscow State University. He was appointed professor in the faculty of Mathematics at Yale University in 1991 and recently completed his term as chair of that department. Among the prestigious international honors Margulis has received are the Fields Medal, the Medal of the College de France, the Alexander von Humboldt Prize and the Lobachevsky International Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Yale Professors Emeritus of Mathematics Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro and Benoit Mandelbrot are previous Wolf Prize recipients.