Bernardo Gabriel Mindlin, Department of Physics, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has been named the winner of the 2004 ICTP Prize. The 2004 Prize is being given in honour of Arthur Taylor Winfree, a distinguished theoretical biologist and Regents Professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA, who died in the fall of 2002.
Gabriel Mindlin is a theorist who has made important contributions to the fundamental, applied and interdisciplinary aspects of nonlinear dynamical systems. In his publications—over 50 well-cited papers appearing in major journals, as well as in books—he has made original contributions to fields as diverse as solar activity, lasers, neural modeling, speech recognition and bird songs.
His early work—a characterization of strange attractors in terms of their topology as opposed to delicate metric properties like dimensions and entropies—had a significant impact. Later, as an independent researcher first in Spain and then in Argentina, he studied the effect of broken symmetries in pattern formation. In recent years, he has shifted his attention to the dynamics of the vocal apparatus. He began with a study of vowels in human speech and then moved on to the investigation of the “syrinx” (the song-making organ) of birds, which is much better accessible experimentally.
Mindlin’s work has always had strong contacts with experiment. He is currently involved in an international collaboration on avian physiology.
Mindlin is a leading figure in his group, actively striving—and managing—to achieve international standards. He is an original, self-motivated and imaginative researcher who seeks out important problems in interdisciplinary areas. He provides a very good example for young scientists starting a career in developing countries.
The award ceremony will take place in early 2005 at a date to be announced.