Terence Tao becomes Patron of International Mathematical Olympiad
Foundation
We are proud to announce that Terence (Terry) Tao has agreed to
accept an appointment as Patron of the IMO (International
Mathematical Olympiad) Foundation. The foundation exists to promote
the IMO and to provide support for host countries and participants.
There could be no more appropriate patron than Terence Tao. His
position as one of the world’s leading mathematicians is well-known and
he has always been a strong supporter of the IMO and related activities.
Terence competed in the IMO in 1986 and was the youngest ever gold
medallist, at the age of 12 in 1988.
Born in Adelaide in 1975 of Chinese parents, Terence was educated at
Blackwood High until entering Flinders University in 1989, completing
his B.Sc. (Hons) in 1991 and his M.Sc. in 1992. He then began his
doctorate at Princeton University under Elias Stein, completing this in
1996. He was made an Assistant Professor at UCLA in 1996 and a Full Professor in 2000 (the
youngest ever appointed by UCLA). Terence has received numerous awards and prizes, including the
Salem Prize in 2000, the Bochner Prize in 2002, the Fields Medal and SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in
2006, the MacArthur Fellowship and Ostrowski Prize in 2007, the Waterman Award in 2008, the
Nemmers Prize in 2010, and the Crafoord prize in 2012. Terence Tao currently holds the James and
Carol Collins chair in mathematics at UCLA, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Australian
Academy of Sciences (Corresponding Member), the National Academy of Sciences (Foreign member),
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His areas of research include harmonic analysis,
PDE, combinatorics, and number theory. Some of his best-known results include the Green-Tao
theorem which states that there are arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of prime numbers and
his more recent result that every odd number greater than 1 is the sum of at most five primes, a
significant step towards proof of the Goldbach conjecture.
Professor Tao says, “I have very fond memories of taking part in IMO. Like any other school sporting
event, there is a level of excitement in participating with peers with similar interests and talents in a
competitive activity. The opportunity to travel nationally and internationally is an experience I
strongly recommend for all high-school students. Taking part in IMO can be a life-changing event for
young, gifted mathematicians. I therefore wholeheartedly support the IMO foundation.”
Terry Tao receiving his IMO Gold
medal from Prime Minister Bob
Hawke in 1988