Abdus Salam School of Mathematical Sciences


The Abdus Salam School of Mathematical Sciences is an autonomous institute affiliated with the Government College University Lahore, Pakistan. The school is named after the theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam.

History

played an influential role in formulating policies for the development of science in Pakistan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He helped establish a number of research institutes in Pakistan including the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology and the Atomic Energy Commission.
In 2002, the Government of Punjab established a center of excellence in mathematical sciences, the School of Mathematical Sciences, affiliated with Government College University, Lahore. The idea behind the school is to create a world-class doctoral research institute in mathematics, but rooted in a developing country like Pakistan. The school was later named after Abdus Salam who was professor of mathematics at the Government College from 1951 to 1954. The school starts operating in late 2003.
, Chairman of The Board of Governors, Amer Iqbal, and other faculty members.
In 2003 Alla Ditta Raza Choudary, an emeritus professor from Central Washington University, was appointed as the director general. ADR Choudary held the position from August 2003 to August 2014. The next director general of the school was Shahid Saeed Siddiqi, who was a professor of mathematics at the Punjab University, held the position from March 2015 to March 2017. From March 2017 until early 2020, the director general of the school was Ghulam Murtaza who also held the Abdus Salam Chair in Physics at the Government College University. The current director general is Mujahid Abbas.

Program overview

ASSMS requires an intensive two-year course for all the students admitted. The first year is dedicated to basic university mathematics course, and in the second year students take more advanced and optional courses in diverse areas of mathematics. At the end of their second year, students choose one of the research groups at AS-SMS, which are geometry, algebra, analysis, discrete mathematics, applied mathematics, and stochastic processes. The graduation rate at the end of fifth year is high.
The institution provides free-of-cost education to its students. It also provides financial assistance to its students.

Achievements

Since its inception until early 2014, AS-SMS has produced more than 100 Ph.D. This is more than twice the total number of Ph.Ds in mathematics produced by all other universities in Pakistan in the same period. It has produced more than 800 publications in Web of Science-indexed journals.
AS-SMS has organized several international level workshops and conferences. Some of workshops at ASSMS has been chosen to have funding from the ICTP, UNESCO, and CIMPA. The signature conferences of ASSMS are its “World/International Conferences of Mathematics in the 21st Century” series, which has been held in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013. The last conference has its proceedings published by the prestigious Springer Publishing by the title "Mathematics in the 21st Century"; with Pierre Cartier, A. D. R. Choudary, and Michel Waldschmidt as the editors.
AS-SMS was chosen as Post-Doctoral research destination from Ph.D holders from prestigious institutions around the world. Young researchers from Russia, Italy, Romania, Indonesia, and other countries have become Post Doctoral Fellows in ASSMS. This is something that not used to happen in any mathematics institution in Pakistan before the existence of ASSMS.
On the recommendation of the Committee for Developing Countries of the European Mathematical Society, AS-SMS was labeled “Emerging Regional Centre of Excellence of the European Mathematical Society” for the period of 2011-2015. Furthermore, AS-SMS and some other ERCE have form Network of International Mathematics Centres in 2013, where ASSMS was supposed to be its initial secretariat.
At the high school level, the school initiated the training camps for preparation and selection of the national team of Pakistan to compete at the International Mathematical Olympiad. The school continued to organize these training camps until 2014. The national team of Pakistan competed at IMO for the very first time in 2005, won its first medal in 2007 and its first silver medal in 2013.