Eugenia Cheng to Receive the 2025 JPBM Communications Award

The following was shared by the American Mathematical Society.

Eugenia Cheng will receive 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,” according to the prize citation.

Cheng – a mathematician, author, musician, and artist – is Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At the vanguard of math on YouTube, she has written eight popular math books, some award-winning.

Response of Eugenia Cheng

Thank you for the honour of awarding me this prize. It is moving and galvanising to be recognised for the work I have done over my varied and surprising career. Some of my more standard academic work is work that I've always wanted to do. But some of my work—books and other outreach—is work to which I felt driven later on, when I had a better understanding of who needed more help with mathematics, and how I could best use my abilities to offer that help.

It has not been easy working to bring more people into mathematics. Unfortunately, I have often met with opposition and obstruction, from people who want to keep mathematics exclusive, or who, in particular, don't want someone like me to be successful. What keeps me going is the support and appreciation of those around me, and my deep, unshakeable belief that mathematics is a profoundly empowering skill to which everyone deserves access, and which everyone can access with the right help. 

So for me this prize is not just a celebration of my work so far, but a source of galvanising energy for the work I will continue to do.

Biographical sketch of Eugenia Cheng

Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician, educator, author, public speaker, concert pianist, artist, and composer. She is Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; won tenure in pure mathematics at the University in Sheffield; and holds a PhD in pure mathematics from the University of Cambridge. She was an early pioneer of math on YouTube and has written eight popular math books, including Beyond Infinity, which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize; Is Math Real?, which won the 2024 LA Times Book Prize for Science and Technology; and two children's books. She has given talks and interviews around the world including for the BBC, NPR, and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” She wrote the “Everyday Math” column for The Wall Street Journal for seven years, and has completed several art commissions and song commissions, including one for a GRAMMY-nominated album.

About the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communication Award

The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communication Award was established by the JPBM in 1988 and is given annually to reward and encourage communicators who, on a sustained basis, bring mathematical ideas and information to nonmathematical audiences. The JPBM is a collaborative effort of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), American Statistical Association (ASA), Mathematical Association of America (MAA), and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). 

Find out more about the award and see past recipients.