Paris, Februray 12th 2019  

​

    Association Séphora Berrebi is pleased to announce that the Séphora Berrebi Scholarships for Women in Advanced Mathematics & Computer Science were awarderd at a ceremony on February 12, 2019, in duplex between the Institut Henri Poincaré and Tel Aviv University.

 

      The association Séphora Berrebi is pleased to announce that the Séphora Berrebi Scholarships for Women in Advanced Mathematics & Computer Sciences were awarded during a ceremony that took place on February 12, 2019, in duplex between Tel Aviv University and the Henri Poincaré Institute.

 

      The Jury in Mathematics, chaired by Professor Laurent Lafforgue (IHÉS), declared as laureates:

- Barbara Dembin: Scholarship in Mathematics in France;

- Radhika Gupta: Scholarship in Mathematics in Israel.

The Jury in Computer Science, chaired by Professor David Peleg (Weizmann Institute), declared as laureates:

- Jelena Mladenovic: Scholarship in Computer Science in France;

- Gali Noti: Scholarship in Computer Science in Israel.

 

      We warmly thank all those who helped make this second edition a success:

​

• The Presidents, the Members of the Jury and of the Scientific Committee, whose participation, advice and support were decisive : Serge Abiteboul [1], Henri Berestycki [2], Bruno Bouchard [2], Haïm Brezis [3], Gilles Dowek [4], Judith Gal-Ezer [5], Isabelle Gallagher [6], Bénédicte Haas [6], Antoine Joux [7], Laurent Lafforgue [8], Jean-Bernard Lasserre [7], Erwan Le Pennec [2], Xavier Leroy [7], Elon Lindenstrauss [9], Pierre-Louis Lions [6], Elisabeth Logak [9], Sylvie Méléard [6], Hagit Messer-Yaron [1], Michel Morvan [1], Pierre Pansu [2], David Peleg [10], Sylvia Serfaty [9], Roger Temam [2], Béatrice de Tilière [9], Alexis Tsoukiàs [7] and Amiram Yehudai [4];

 

• Michaël Krivelevich, Dean of the TAU Faculty of Exact Sciences and Sylvie Benzoni, Director of the Institut Henri Poincaré who welcomed us on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea to this connected event with an inaugural address of which we are grateful, as well as all the staff of the institutions they lead, symbols of scientific excellence;

 

• Dana Ron who accepted to chair the Awards Ceremony at Tel Aviv University;

 

• The Scientific and Academic Attaché of the French Embassy in Tel Aviv, Sébastien Linden, who represented the Ambassador of France, Hélène Le Gall, who was among us at the first edition;

 

• The eminent scientists who did us the honor of sharing, thanks to their inspiring speeches, their appetite for research and a bit of their knowledge, during moments of intelligence and generosity:

 

• Isabelle Ledoux-Rak, Marie Théret and Béatrice de Tilière, impressed us as much by their researcher's career as by their charisma during the round table: they knew how to give to a quickly conquered public a technical understanding of their very sharp fields of research;

 

• Gilles Dowek invited the audience to a passionate reflection on the essence of computational thinking, at the crossroads between science, epistemology and philosophy;

 

• Laurent Lafforgue, chalk in the hand and wonder on the face, exposed a theorem whose influence on modern physics is considerable: that of the mathematician Emmy Noether, which establishes a striking link between a concept, the symmetry, and the conservation laws;

 

• Succeeding in the tour de force of addressing an informed audience while reaching a non-scientific audience, Elon Lindenstrauss developed his conference around the theme "Dynamics, lattices and surfaces", paying thus tribute to two outstanding mathematicians, the late Marina Ratner and Maryam Mirzakhani;

 

• Xavier Leroy, finally, introduced us to a female pioneer with an extraordinary career, the computer scientist Grace Hopper, her "grandmother in software science", who invented the first compiler;

 

• All the candidates for the scholarship, of ten different nationalities, whose excellent level in general was noticed by both juries: this adventure makes big sense with them and thanks to them; winners or not, some came to attend the ceremony, demonstrating their commitment to promoting science to young girls and we express our gratitude to them and to the professors who wrote detailed letters of recommendation;

 

• The laureates, whose presentations on their research topics have marked the audience both in Paris and Tel Aviv: their sense of pedagogy, rigor, passion and even originality testifies to their talent to share on complex subjects;

 

• Universities, specialized societies, research institutions and associations that have agreed to relay information and to publicize the Séphora Berrebi Scholarship for Women in Advanced Mathematics & Computer Science;

 

• The nearly one hundred high school girls who took part to a dedicated Master Class in Paris; some had been selected for their motivation after a spontaneous application, others were chosen by their school to attend this event; we would like to warmly thank them for their exceptional attention throughout the event and hope that this will help to arouse in some of them the desire to go further in Mathematics or in Computer Science; we express in particular our gratitude to those who asked questions to the researchers of the round table and to the high school principals who trusted us;

 

• The female researchers who animated the speed meeting workshop, Léa Boittin, Delphine Demange, Sophie D'Ambrosio, Barbara Dembin (laureate in Mathematics), Marie Doumic, Flaviana Iurlano (last year laureate who also presented her "Thesis in 4 minutes"), Laura Lopes, Jelena Mladenovic (laureate in Computer Science), Adelaide Olivier, Sabrina Ouazzani, Melissa Rossi, Marie Théret and Marina Ville: high school girls were "captivated, impressed by these exceptionaln passionate and exciting women"[11];

 

• The Sponsoring Committee of the Association Séphora Berrebi and all those who contributed to make known our initiative;

 

• All those who, like Yves Meyer, Cédric Villani and others, encouraged us from the beginning of the project, and agreed, like Alain Connes and Jospeh Zyss, to make an intervention during the first edition in 2017 and helped to publicize the Séphora Berrebi Scholarship.

 

 

      We hope that everyone has experienced this "parenthesis of exception" also as a tribute to female and male mathematicians, computer scientists, scientists of all kinds and of all nationalities, to the personalities who have received the prestigious Abel prize or Fields medal as well as to beginners, researchers, bridge builders, to those who always ensure the transmission, in writing or orally, to those who constantly seek to go beyond the difficulties and injustices inflicted by life and to overcome the obstacles to knowledge and, of course, to the one which inspires us every day: Séphora.

 

 

      Emmanuelle, Gérald et Jonathan Berrebi

​

 

[1] Jury Member in Computer Science, first edition

[2] Jury Member in Mathematics, first and second editions

[3] President of the Jury in Mathematics, first edition, and Jury Member, second edition

[4] Jury Member in Computer Science, first and second editions

[5] President of the Jury in Computer Science, first edition, and Jury Member, second edition

[6] Jury Member in Mathematics, first edition

[7] Jury Member in Computer Science, second edition

[8] President of the Jury in Mathematics, second edition, and Jury Member, first edition

[9] Jury Member in Mathematics, second edition

[10] President of the Jury in Computer Science, second edition

[11] According to the testimony of a teacher accompanying them.

​

​