Prize History

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Eugenia Cheng received the 2025 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for her remarkable work bringing mathematics, mathematical ideas, and mathematical art to a wide audience through a multitude of books and other media.

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Natalie Dean received the 2024 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for a remarkable record of public engagement providing clear meaning and context to COVID models and predictions through traditional and social media.

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Jordan Ellenberg received the 2023 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for his clear and entertaining prose that brings the power and beauty of mathematics to general audiences. In addition to authoring two best-selling books, How Not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking (2014) and Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else (2021) — Ellenberg also contributes numerous articles to newspapers and magazines in print and online.

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Grant Sanderson received the 2023 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for 3Blue1Brown, his watchable and engaging YouTube channel, with over 4 million subscribers, about discovery and creativity in mathematics. Topics range broadly across timely and important mathematical areas, from neural networks to information theory to unexpected appearances of pi in analysis and number theory. Through 3Blue1Brown videos and animations, Sanderson presents mathematics both as practically valuable and as an art form, rich with inviting stories and arresting images.

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Talithia Williams has won the 2022 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for bringing mathematics and statistics into the homes and hands of millions through her work as a TV host, renowned speaker, and author.

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John Bailer, Richard Campbell and Rosemary Pennington receive the 2021 JPBM Communications Award for their engaging, entertaining, and enlightening Stats + Stories podcast that for over six years has brought the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics' to public radio and a broad podcast audience.

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Erica Klarreich receives the 2021 JPBM Communications Award for her work as a writer and popularizer of mathematics and science. She writes about mathematics and theoretical computer science, and her writing has been chosen for and reprinted in Best Writing on Mathematics in four different years. Her works have appeared in Quanta, The Atlantic, New Scientist, Science News, Wired and other publications for a general audience. Erica Klarreich received a PhD in mathematics in 1997.

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Chris Budd receives the 2020 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for his passionate popularization of mathematics. Through his positions at Gresham College, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, his books, and his work with science festivals and schools, he inspires audiences of all ages.

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James Tanton is a recipient of the 2020 Joint Policy for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for global leadership in high school mathematics instruction. Through his "G'Day Math!" online courses, MAA Curriculum Inspirations, numerous textbooks, and the Global Math Project, he is inspiring millions to learn, and teach, math in wonderful new ways.

2019 Margot Lee Shetterly

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The 2019 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award was presented to Margot Lee Shetterly for her book and subsequent movie "Hidden Figures," which opened science and mathematics to a new generation of women and people of color by bringing into the light the stories of the African-American women who made significant contributions to aeronautics and astronautics, and, ultimately, to America's victory in the space race.

2018 Vi Hart

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The 2018 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award was presented to Vi Hart for entertaining, thought-provoking mathematics and music videos on YouTube that explain mathematical concepts through doodles.

2018 Matt Parker

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The 2018 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award was presented to Matt Parker for communicating the excitement of mathematics to a worldwide audience through YouTube videos, TV and radio appearances, book and newspaper writings, and stand-up comedy.

2017 Arthur T. Benjamin

2017 Siobhan Roberts

2016 Museum of Mathematics

2016 Simon Singh

2015 Nate Silver

2014 Danica McKellar

2013 John Allen Paulos

2012 Dana Mackenzie

2011 Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton

2010 Marcus du Sautoy

2009 George Csicsery

2008 Carl Bialik

2007 Steven H. Strogatz

2006 Roger Penrose

2005 Barry Cipra

2004 No award was given

2003 Robert Osserman

2002 Helaman Ferguson and Claire Ferguson

2001 Keith Devlin

2000 Sylvia Nasar

1999 John Lynch and Simon Singh

1999 Ian Stewart

1998 Constance Reid

1997 Phillip J. Davis

1996 Gina Kolata

1994 Martin Gardner

1993 Joel Schneider

1991 Ivars Peterson

1990 Hugh Whitemore

1988 James Gleick