MATH+ and its graduate school, the Berlin Mathematical School (BMS), celebrated their graduates, the Young African Mathematicians (YAM) Fellows, and the recipients of the 2025 MATH+ Dissertation Awards during a festive certificate ceremony on 10 July 2026 at Freie Universität Berlin. Around 100 members of the MATH+/BMS community, along with many family members and guests, attended the celebration and enjoyed a sunny afternoon and evening in a warm and cheerful atmosphere, rounded off with a barbecue reception.

The afternoon began with the MATH+ Friday Colloquium, featuring the lecture “Rare events in particle systems and conservative stochastic PDE” by Benjamin Fehrman, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Louisiana State University (LSU). His research focuses on stochastic analysis, partial differential equations (PDEs), and randomized machine learning optimization.

Following the colloquium, BMS Chairs John M. Sullivan (Technische Universität Berlin) and Holger Reich (Freie Universität Berlin), together with MATH+ Chair Claudia Schillings (Freie Universität Berlin) welcomed the graduates, their families and friends, the YAM Fellows, and the broader MATH+ community to the ceremony.

John M. Sullivan then delivered the laudation for the recipients of the 2025 MATH+ Dissertation Awards. Established in 2020, the awards recognize outstanding doctoral dissertations completed within the Berlin Mathematical School, the graduate school of MATH+. This year’s awards were presented to Benedikt Gräßle (HU Berlin), Moritz Grillo (TU Berlin), and Vasily Rogov (HU Berlin), who proudly accepted their award certificates during the ceremony. Congratulations to all three recipients from the BMS team—Tanja Fagel, Annika Preuß-Vermeulen, and Alexios Nompilakis— as well as MATH+ Managing Director Nadja Wisniewski.

The BMS Chairs also honored the two Young African Mathematicians (YAM) Fellows of the 2025-2026 MATH+ YAM Fellowship Program: Kessel Wilson Mbouche Nzali and Manuella Kristeva Nakam Yopdup, both from Cameroon. During the ceremony, which only Kessel could attend, they were recognized for successfully completing the nine-month fellowship program at MATH+.

Afterwards, BMS Chairs John M. Sullivan and Holger Reich alternately presented certificates to this year’s BMS Phase I and Phase II graduates, congratulating each graduate on their achievements.

Bright sunflowers accompanied the certificates, adding a festive touch to the celebration. Throughout the afternoon, graduates gathered with their supervisors, fellow alumni, family members, and friends for photos to commemorate the occasion in a cheerful atmosphere.

The celebration concluded with a relaxed summer gathering and barbecue reception, giving graduates, researchers, and guests the opportunity to reconnect, discuss science, exchange memories, and celebrate together.

Congratulations to all graduates! We wish you all the best in your personal and professional lives, and we look forward to keeping in touch and seeing you again at our future alumni events.

LINKS:

• BMS: Phase I and Phase II students
• YAM Fellows 2025-2026
• MATH+ Dissertation Award recipients
• MATH+ Friday Colloquium by Benjamin Fehrman