Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications

{{Short description|International scientific organization}}

{{Infobox organization

| name = Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications

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| abbreviation = ICA

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| type = 501(c)(3)

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| location = Duluth, MN

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| focus = increase visibility and influence of the combinatorial community

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| board_of_directors = Daniel Panario, President

Charles Colbourn, Vice-president

Dalibor Froncek, Vice-president

Anita Pasotti, Vice-president

Sarah Heuss, Secretary

Bryan Freyberg, Registrar

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| homepage = http://www.the-ica.org/

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The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) is an international scientific organization formed in 1990 to increase the visibility and influence of the combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors conferences, publishes a bulletin and awards a number of medals, including the Euler, Hall, Kirkman, and Stanton Medals. It is based in Duluth, Minnesota and its operation office is housed at University of Minnesota Duluth.{{citation|title=Message from the President|journal=Bulletin of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications|volume=94|year=2022|issn=1183-1278|place=Duluth|pages=8}}University of Minnesota Duluth

The institute was minimally active between 2010 and 2016 and resumed its full activities in March 2016.{{cite web |url=http://combinatoricsinstitute.blogspot.cz/2016/03/minutes-of-march-9-2016-meeting.html|title=The ICA blog: Minutes of the March 9, 2016 meeting |access-date=February 19, 2017}}

Membership

The ICA has over 800 members in over forty countries.{{citation|title=A Few Facts About the ICA|journal=Bulletin of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications|volume=72|year=2014|issn=1183-1278|place=Winnipeg|pages=15–17}} Membership is at three levels. Members are those who have not yet completed a Ph.D. Associate Fellows are younger members who have received the Ph.D. or have published extensively; normally an Associate Fellow should hold the rank of assistant professor. Fellows are expected to be established scholars and typically have the rank of associate professor or higher.

Some members are involved in highly theoretical research; there are members whose primary interest lies in education and instruction; and there are members who are heavily involved in the applications of combinatorics in statistical design, communications theory, cryptography, computer security, and other practical areas.

Although being a fellow of the ICA is not itself a highly selective honor, the ICA also maintains another class of members, "honorary fellows", people who have made "pre-eminent contributions to combinatorics or its applications". The number of living honorary fellows is limited to ten at any time. The deceased honorary fellows include

H. S. M. Coxeter, Paul Erdős, Haim Hanani, Bernhard Neumann, D. H. Lehmer,

Leonard Carlitz, Robert Frucht, E. M. Wright, and Horst Sachs.

Living honorary fellows include

S. S. Shrikhande, C. R. Rao, G. J. Simmons, Vera Sós, Henry Gould, Carsten Thomassen, Neil Robertson, Cheryl Praeger, and R. M. Wilson.{{cite web|url=http://www.the-ica.org/honorary.php|title=Honorary Fellows of the ICA|publisher=Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications|access-date=2017-12-08}}

Publication

The ICA publishes the Bulletin of the ICA{{cite web|url=http://bica.the-ica.org|title=Bulletin of the ICA|publisher=Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications|access-date=2020-07-13}} ({{ISSN|1183-1278}}), a journal that combines publication of survey and research papers with news of members and accounts of future and past conferences. It appears three times a year, in January, May and September and usually consists of 128 pages.

Beginning in 2017, the research articles in the Bulletin have been made available on an open access basis.{{cite web|url=http://bica.the-ica.org/Volumes|title=Refereed reprints from the Bulletin of the ICA|publisher=Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications|access-date=2020-07-13}}

Medals

The ICA awards the Euler Medals annually for distinguished career contributions to combinatorics by a member of the institute who is still active in research. It is named after the 18th century mathematician Leonhard Euler.

The ICA awards the Hall Medals, named after Marshall Hall, Jr., to recognize outstanding achievements by members who are not over age 40.

The ICA awards the Kirkman Medals, named after Thomas Kirkman, to recognize outstanding achievements by members who are within four years past their Ph.D.

The winners of the medals for the years between 2010 and 2015 were decided by the ICA Medals Committee between November 2016{{cite web |url=http://combinatoricsinstitute.blogspot.com/2016/11/2009-2010-medal-winners.html|title=The ICA blog: 2009–2010 Medal Winners |access-date=April 16, 2017}} and February 2017{{cite web |url=http://combinatoricsinstitute.blogspot.com/2017/02/medals-updates.html|title=The ICA blog: Medals update |access-date=April 16, 2017}} after the ICA resumed its activities in 2016.

In 2016, the ICA voted to institute an ICA medal to be known as the Stanton Medal, named after Ralph Stanton, in recognition of substantial and sustained contributions, other than research, to promoting the discipline of combinatorics. The Stanton Medal honours significant lifetime contributions to promoting the discipline of combinatorics through advocacy, outreach, service, teaching and/or mentoring. At most one medal per year is to be awarded, typically to a Fellow of the ICA.

= List of Euler Medal winners =

class="wikitable"
Year

!Winners

2024

|Gyula O. H. Katona

2023

|Jennifer Seberry

2022

|George Andrews

2021

|Hendrik Van Maldeghem

2020

|Marston Conder

2019

| no medal awarded

2018

|Dieter Jungnickel

2017

|Fan Chung

2016

|James Hirschfeld

2015No medal awarded
2014

|Brian Alspach

2013

|Curt Lindner

2012

|Alex Rosa

2011

|Cheryl Praeger

2010

|Bojan Mohar

2009– no medal awarded –
2008Gábor Korchmáros
2007Stephen Milne, Heiko Harborth
2006Clement W. H. Lam, Nick Wormald
2005Ralph Faudree, Aviezri Fraenkel
2004Doron Zeilberger, Zhu Lie
2003Peter Cameron, Charles Colbourn
2002Herbert Wilf
2001Spyros Magliveras
2000Richard A. Brualdi, Horst Sachs
1999D. K. Ray-Chaudhuri
1998Peter Ladislaw Hammer, Anthony Hilton
1997– no medal awarded –
1996J.H. van Lint
1995Hanfried Lenz
1994Joseph A. Thas
1993Claude Berge, Ronald Graham

= List of Hall Medal winners =

class="wikitable"
Year

!Winners

2024

|Geertrui Van de Voorde and Rjko Nenadov

2023

|Jan Goedgebeur and Kenta Ozeki

2022

|Jan De Beule and Pablo Spiga

2021

|Tao Feng and Anita Pasotti

2020

| Jie Ma

2019

|Koen Thas and Jeroen Schillewaert

2018

|Kai-Uwe Schmidt

2017

|John Bamberg and Daniel Horsley

2016– no medal awarded –
2015

|Lijun Ji

2014

|Peter Dukes

2013

|Bart De Bruyn

2012

|Michael Giudici

2011

|Olga Polverino

2010

|Catherine Greenhill

2009– no medal awarded –
2008Ian Wanless
2007David Pike
2006Darryn Bryant, Gennian Ge, Heather Jordon
2005Jonathan Jedwab
2004Dirk Hachenberger, Masaaki Harada
2003Antonio Cossidente
2002Saad El-Zanati
2001Alfred Menezes, Alexander Pott
2000Michael Henning, Klaus Metsch
1999Hendrik Van Maldeghem, Rolf Rees
1998Marco Buratti, Arrigo Bonisoli
1997Reinhard Diestel
1996Christos Koukouvinos, Christine O'Keefe, Tim Penttila
1995Donald Kreher
1994Ortrud Oellermann, Chris Rodger, Doug Stinson

= List of Kirkman Medal winners =

class="wikitable"
Year

!Winners

2024

|Jozefien D'Haeseleer, Zixiang Xu

2023

|Yifan Jing, Sam Mattheus

2022

|Melissa Huggan, Ziqing Xiang

2021

|Yujie Gu, Natasha Morrison

2020

| Chong Shangguan

2019Tao Zhang
2018Alexander Bors, Shuxing Li
2017Hengjia Wei, Binzhou Xia
2016Yue Zhou
2015

|Padraig Ó Catháin

2014

|Daniele Bartoli

2013

|Tommaso Traetta

2012

|Rebecca Stones, Xiande Zhang

2011

|Tao Feng

2010

|Daniel Horsley, Kai-Uwe Schmidt

2009– no medal awarded –
2008Nick Cavenagh, Futaba Okamoto
2007Petteri Kaski, Peter Dukes
2006John Bamberg, Giuseppe Marino, Koen Thas
2005Michael Giudici, Matt Walsh
2004Andreas Enge, Jon-Lark Kim
2003Ken-ichi Kawarabayashi, Mateja Sajna, Sanming Zhou
2002Ian Wanless
2001Matthew Brown, Alan Ling, Ying Miao
2000Michael Raines
1999Nicholas Hamilton, Qing Xiang
1998Peter Adams, Cai Heng Li
1997Makoto Matsumoto, Bernhard Schmidt
1996Gregory Gutin, Patric R. J. Östergård
1995Darryn Bryant
1994Robert Craigen, Jonathan Jedwab

= List of Stanton Medal winners =

class="wikitable"
Year

!Winners

2023

| - no medal awarded -

2022

|Doug Stinson

2021

|Gary Chartrand

2020

| - no medal awarded -

2019Charlie Colbourn
2018– no medal awarded –
2017Robin Wilson
2016Ronald Mullin

References

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