The Department of Decision Sciences is proud to share that Elia Brué has been awarded the 2026 UMI Research Prize in Algebra and Geometry, jointly with Daniele Semola, by the Italian Mathematical Union (UMI).

The prize recognizes their profound contributions to geometric analysis, with particular emphasis on the interplay between curvature and the topological structure of manifolds and metric spaces. Their work has led to the resolution of longstanding conjectures of exceptional importance in Riemannian geometry, including Milnor’s conjecture on the fundamental groups of manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and the Perelman–Petrunin conjecture on the existence of infinite geodesics in Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below.

This recognition also highlights the remarkable methodological breadth of Elia’s research, which brings together recent developments in PDEs on curved spaces, ideas from geometric group theory, and classical methods from differential topology. His work exemplifies how techniques from analysis can open new perspectives on deep geometric and topological questions, creating powerful connections across different areas of mathematics.

Congratulations to Elia on this outstanding achievement!

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