{"id":3091,"date":"2026-11-04T14:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T14:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/?p=3091"},"modified":"2026-11-04T14:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T14:47:08","slug":"tribute-to-philippe-tondeur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/2026\/11\/04\/tribute-to-philippe-tondeur\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute to Philippe Tondeur"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Picture above: Philippe Tondeur at the ICM 2006 in Spain.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is with great sadness that Friends of IHES has learned of the passing of Philippe Tondeur<\/a>, former Director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF)<\/a>, and, together with his wife, Claire-Lise, a major supporter of Friends of IHES. His longtime friend Jean-Pierre Bourguignon<\/a>, former Director of IHES, pays tribute to his life and legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Philippe Tondeur passed away on October 15, after a rich and fulfilling life shared with his wife, Claire-Lise\u2014a life devoted to mathematics and to serving the mathematical community, whether in his own field of research, his department, or his adopted country, the United States of America. In one of our last conversations, he wrote to me: \u201cMy experiences in the world of mathematics have been among the greatest joys of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have lost a very dear friend with whom I had the pleasure of exchanging mathematical ideas in conversations that extended far beyond differential geometry, a field in which we both shared a particular interest. I also benefited greatly from his expertise in his favorite subject, foliation theory. These exchanges took place at institutions around the world and came all the more naturally because many of his collaborators were also close friends of mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His remarkable powers of persuasion proved especially effective during his tenure as Director of the NSF\u2019s Division of Mathematical Sciences from 1999 to 2002, when he succeeded in nearly doubling its budget. I had the opportunity to appreciate his vision for the future of our discipline during our many discussions at the conference \u201cMathematical Challenges of the 21st Century\u201d<\/a>, held in Los Angeles in August 2000 as part of the celebrations marking the World Mathematical Year 2000. He believed that mathematics should give data science its rightful place in the years to come\u2014an idea that was far from obvious at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IHES owes an immense debt of gratitude to Philippe and his wife for the exceptional gift they made in 2024, which enabled the creation of a Permanent Professor’s Chair at the Institute<\/a>. Marilyn and Jim Simons joined them in this initiative by matching their contribution. Philippe and Claire-Lise wished to associate my name with this chair, a very special honor that I accepted because of our longstanding friendship, built over the years on mutual trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gift had been preceded by another, intended to support the Institute\u2019s efforts to involve artists in some of its projects\u2014a cause that was dear to both of us.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon
Nicolaas Kuiper Honorary Professor and former Director of IHES<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: \u00a9 MFO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Picture above: Philippe Tondeur at the ICM 2006 in Spain. It is with great sadness that Friends of IHES has learned of the passing of Philippe Tondeur, former Director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF), and, together with his wife, Claire-Lise, a major supporter of Friends of IHES. His […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3095,"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091\/revisions\/3095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsofihes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}