Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service
The Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics is the most prestigious award for service offered by the MAA. First presented in 1990, this award consists of a cash prize of $5,000, a citation, and the recognition of the American mathematical community. Nominations are due by October 1 each year.
The Gung and Hu Award is the endowed successor to the MAA’s Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics, first presented in 1962. It is to be made for service to mathematics that has been widely recognized as extraordinarily successful. The period of service may be long or short, and the award may be made on the basis of one or several activities. The contribution should be such as to influence the field of mathematics or mathematical education in a significant and positive way on a national scale. The recipient must be a member of the Association who is a resident of the United States or Canada and who has not received the MAA's Dolciani Award within the last five years.
The initial endowment was contributed by husband and wife Dr. Charles Y. Hu and Yueh-Gin Gung. It is worth noting that Dr. Hu and Yueh-Gin Gung were not mathematicians, but rather a professor of geography at the University of Maryland and a librarian at the University of Chicago, respectively. They contributed generously to our discipline because, as they wrote, “We always have high regard and great respect for the intellectual agility and high quality of mind of mathematicians and consider mathematics as the most vital field of study in the technological age we are living in.”
This award consists of a cash prize of $5,000, a citation, and the recognition of the American mathematical community. Nominations are due by October 1 each year. The Gung and Hu Award is made for service to mathematics that has been widely recognized as extraordinarily successful. The period of service may be long or short, and the award may be made on the basis of one or several activities. The contribution should be such as to influence the field of mathematics or mathematical education in a significant and positive way on a national scale.
Submit completed nomination form and required attachments to secretary@maa.org by October 1.
Gung and Hu Award Guidelines and Regulations
- This award is the Association’s most prestigious one for service. It is to be made for service to mathematics that has been widely recognized as extraordinarily successful. The period of service may be long or short, and the award may
be made on the basis of one or several activities. The contribution should be such as to influence the field of mathematics or mathematical education in a significant and positive way on a national scale. - The recipient must be a member of the Association who is a resident of the United States or Canada and who has not received the MAA’s Dolciani Award within the last five years.
- No more than one award should be made each year.
- The award is to consist of $5,000, a silver cup, and a certificate.
5. The award shall be made at an annual meeting of the Association.
6. The recipient of the award is to be recommended by a standing committee appointed by the President of the Association. The committee is to consist of six members each to serve for a non-renewable term of three years. The terms are staggered (i.e., two new members each year) and former members of the committee are eligible for reappointment after an interim of three years, except that members appointed to fulfill an unexpired term of one year may be reappointed for a full term.
7. The recommendation of the committee requires confirmation by the Board of Directors.
8. The Committee shall publish annually in Focus and on the MAA website a request for suggestions of individuals worthy of consideration for the Award. A list of names under consideration will be carried over from each selection cycle to the next.
9. Any member of the MAA may contact the association’s secretary to suggest an individual for consideration by the Committee.
10. The Committee should submit a nominee to the Secretary in time for inclusion in the agenda of the spring meeting of the Board of Directors. A brief nominating statement should be prepared to support the nominee. The committee is reminded that a nomination is confidential until approved by the Board and announced by the Secretary.
11. The name of the recipient shall be announced prior to the annual meeting so that the recipient’s friends can plan to attend the prize session at the annual meeting. Appropriate publicity should be given in the home-town and college (or institutional) papers. Furthermore, the Secretary of the Association shall inform the head of the recipient’s institution of the honor received.
12. After the Board has approved the recipient of the Gung and Hu Award, the Committee will prepare an article on the awardee to appear in the February or March issue of the Monthly following the Joint Meetings at which the Award is presented. The committee chair shall contact the Editor of the Monthly immediately after the nomination has been confirmed by the Board of Directors (usually at the summer meeting). The committee chair shall confirm that pages are being reserved in the February or March issue for this purpose and ascertain the deadline for receipt of the Editor of a photograph suitable for publication and final copy of the citation. At the same time, the draft of the citation shall be circulated for editing by the Secretary and the awardee (to read for accuracy) before submission to the Editor of the Monthly. The committee chair and the principal writer(s) of the citation shall be listed as authors in the Monthly. The members of the committee shall be listed in a footnote at the end of the citation. The citation will be widely read, and should be composed with extraordinary care.
Past Recipients
2023
Victor J. Katz, Professor of Mathematics emeritus at the University of the District of Columbia
2022
Barbara Faires, Westminster College
2021
Deanna Haunsperger, Carleton College
2020
Gerald J. Porter, University of Pennsylvania
2019
Philip Uri Treisman, The University of Texas at Austin
2018
David Bressoud, Macalaster College
2017
Martha J. Siegel, Towson University
2016
George Berzsenyi
2015
W. James Lewis, University of Nebraska
2014
Joan Leitzel
2013
William A. Hawkins, Jr., University of District of Columbia
2012
John Ewing, Indiana University
2011
Joseph Gallian, University of Minnesota Duluth
2010
Kenneth A. Ross, University of Oregon
2009
Robert Megginson, University of Michigan
2008
Lida Barrett, University of Tennessee
2007
Lee Lorch, York University in Toronto
2006
Hyman Bass, University of Michigan
2005
Gerald L. Alexanderson, Santa Clara University
2004
T. Christine Stevens, Saint Louis University
2003
Clarence F. Stephens, SUNY at Potsdam
2001
Manuel P. Berriozabal, University of Texas at San Antonio
2000
Paul R. Halmos, Santa Clara University
1999
Leonard Gillman, University of Texas at Austin
1998
Alice T. Schafer, Wellesley College
1997
Deborah Tepper Haimo, University of California at San Diego
1996
Andrew Gleason, Harvard University
1995
Anneli Lax, New York University
1994
J. Sutherland Frame, Michigan State University
1993
Henry O. Pollak, Columbia University
1992
Lynn A. Steen, St. Olaf College
1991
Shirley Hill, University of Missouri-Kansas City
1990
Leon Henkin, University of California- Berkeley
1989
Ivan Niven, University of Oregon
1988
Murray S. Klamkin, University of Alberta
1987
Gail S. Young, Ossining, NY
1986
Arnold E. Ross, Ohio State University
1985
Everett Pitcher, Lehigh University
1984
(no award given)
1983
Edwin F. Beckenbach (posthumously), University of California- Los Angeles
1982
Thornton C. Fry, Carmel, CA
1981
Ralph P. Boas, Northwestern University
1980
Henry L. Alder, University of California-Davis
1979
Otto Neugebauer, Brown University
1978
Richard D. Anderson, Louisiana State University
1977
Victor Klee, University of Washington
1976
Leon W. Cohen, University of Maryland
1975
Saunders Mac Lane, University of Chicago
1974
RH Bing, University of Texas-Austin
1973
R.L. Wilder, University of Michigan
1972
Carl B. Allendoerfer, University of Washington
1971
Burton W. Jones, University of Colorado
1970
G. Baley Price, University of Kansas
1969
Edward G. Begle, Stanford University
1968
A.W. Tucker, Princeton University
1967
W.L. Duren, University of Virginia
1966
Harry M. Gehman, State University of New York at Buffalo
1965
Richard Courant, New York University
1964
E.J. McShane, University of Virginia
1963
George Pólya, Stanford University
1962
Mina S. Rees, Hunter College-City University of New York