IHES and Friends of IHES spent a week in the Bay Area meeting with friends, visitors and supporters, visiting local companies and organizing several events that gathered outstanding personalities.

Emmanuel Ullmo, Director General of IHES, currently spends a 3-month research visit at the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute in Berkeley. IHES and Friends of IHES took this opportunity to visit the Bay Area and meet with its friends and supporters.

Accompanied by the Consulate General of France, IHES spent an intensive and inspiring week meeting some outstanding personalities. IHES was delighted to discover some innovative and disruptive projects of X, the Moonshot Factory, introduced by its Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller. The Institute was also delighted to visit Agilent, a company that supports IHES in its projects aimed to increase the presence of women in mathematics.

Friends of IHES also organized several events. The Institute was thrilled to gather its friends, visitors and science lovers together with Gauthier and Nathalie Vasseur in their place in Menlo Park for a friendly « Maths Dinner ».

Additionally, Friends of IHES, in the presence of Marilyn and Jim Simons, the co-Chairs of the Board of Friends of IHES, organized an exclusive event with Emmanuel Candès, the Barnum-Simons Chair in Mathematics and Statistics, Stanford University, as keynote speaker in the Four Seasons hotel in San Francisco. His speech on “Predicting with confidence” was followed by a fundraising dinner during which Marilyn and Jim Simons announced that they were matching all donations made to the new Friends of IHES endowment fund up to 10 million dollars.

Friends of IHES and IHES ended this West Coast trip supporting Gioia De Cari’s fabulous play « Truth Values » performed at Théâtre Erick Moreau of Lycée Français de San Francisco. The play was followed by a post-show panel discussion moderated by professor Vijay Mehrotra with three participants: Marilyn Simons, co-Chair of Friends of IHES, Emille D. Lawrence, Associate Professor and Chair of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of San Francisco and Tatiana Toro, Director of Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute. Friends of IHES was thrilled to join Gioia De Cari in her efforts to support women in sciences and increase diversity in these fields.

From right to left: Vijay Mehrotra, professor of Business Analytics at the University of San Francisco, Marilyn Simons, co-Chair of Friends of IHES, Emille D. Lawrence, Associate Professor and Chair of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of San Francisco, Gioia De Cari, artist and author of “Truth Values” and Tatiana Toro, Director of Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute.