Creative Research Medal

Giorgis Petridis, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, and his colleague Brandon Hanson (now at the University of Maine), published a 2021 breakthrough paper in The Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, the flagship journal of the LMS. The paper deals with a well-known problem in the structure of Paley graphs, a fundamental model allowing mathematicians to address deep questions with applications in coding theory and cryptography. In an argument that takes slightly more than a page, Petridis and Hanson apply the polynomial method to make progress on a problem many others have tried but failed to crack. The paper attracted the attention of mathematicians because of its surprisingly brief and elegant proof based on a creative and imaginative approach. Petridis has published several other high-impact research papers, many on longstanding questions. His research has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation since 2015 with many invitations to present his work at national and international meetings.