On March 13, the ceremony of the first Guangdong Friendship Award took place in Guangzhou.

Efim Zelmanov, Chair Professor of the Department of Mathematics at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) and Director of the Shenzhen International Center for Mathematics, received the Guangdong Friendship Award.

Prof. Efim Zelmanov, a recipient of the Fields Medal in 1994, is also a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), a foreign member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In 2021, he was elected as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

He has been a part of SUSTech since 2019 as a Distinguished Visiting Professor and the founding Director of the Shenzhen International Center for Mathematics, and he became Chair Professor of the Department of Mathematics in 2022.

Prof. Zelmanov is known for his work on combinatorial problems in nonassociative algebra and group theory, including his solution of the restricted Burnside problem. The Burnside problem, posed in 1902, is one of the oldest questions in group theory and was influential in the development of combinatorial group theory.

The Guangdong Friendship Award is awarded every three years by the Guangdong Provincial Government to acknowledge foreign experts for their outstanding contributions to the province’s development and international exchanges. On this occasion, there were a total of 49 winners from 23 countries.