The winner of the 2021 Clay Research Award is Bhargav Bhatt from the University of Michigan. The award recognises his groundbreaking achievements in commutative algebra, arithmetic algebraic geometry, and topology in the p-adic setting.

His profound contributions include the development, in joint work with M. Morrow and P. Scholze, of a unified p-adic cohomology theory (prismatic cohomology) and, in joint work with J. Lurie, a p-adic Riemann-Hilbert functor. Striking applications of this work include Bhatt’s resolution of longstanding problems in commutative algebra, in particular concerning the Cohen-Macaulay property and Kodaira vanishing up to finite covers. These results have in turn fuelled startling progress on the minimal model program in mixed characteristic.

Photo:  Katie Grillaert