The 2018 Wolf Prize for Mathematics has been awarded to Prof. Alexander Beilinson and Prof. Vladimir Drinfeld, both from the University of Chicago, for their groundbreaking work in algebraic geometry, representation theory, and mathematical physics.
Vladimir Drinfeld was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In 1969, at the age of 15, he represented the Soviet Union at the International Mathematics Olympiad in Bucharest, Romania, and won a gold medal with the full score of 40 points. He was, at the time, the youngest participant to achieve a perfect score. Drinfeld was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990. From 1981 till 1999 he worked at the Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering (Department of Mathematical Physics) in Kharkiv. Drinfeld moved to the United States in 1999 and has been working at the University of Chicago since January 1999.