Cajori Prizes

Florian Cajori
Florian Cajori

On the centenary of Cajori's birth, in 1959, Colorado College sponsored a public lecture in his honour and memory. This was given on 25th February 1959 by the distinguished Norwegian mathematician and historian of mathematics Oystein Ore. (It was on 'Pascal and the invention of probability theory', and didn't mention Cajori once.) The next year another Cajori lecture was delivered, on April 21st 1960, this time by one of Cajori's former students, Harold Davis of Northwestern University. Davis gave rather fuller attention to Cajori for the first part of his lecture, with several reminiscences. The local newspaper the Gazette Telegraph reported this occasion as "the annual Cajori lecture", but it has not been possible to trace any subsequent one; it seems that there was an annual Cajori lecture, but for only the two years 1959 and 1960.

In 1986, the Mathematics Department instituted a Cajori Prize as an award, usually given annually, for outstanding achievement in mathematics. A plaque hanging in the mathematics lounge records the names of those earning this distinction. Once computer science grew to the point where it was drawing a substantial number of students, the Cajori Prize was expanded to include outstanding achievement in computer science as well.

On March 1st 1999 (the day after the 140th anniversary of his birth) the Mathematics Department laid on a 140th birthday tea for Florian Cajori, at which Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor of Mathematics John Fauvel (Open University, UK) gave an address entitled 'Florian Cajori and the Golden Age of Colorado College'.

Awardees
2024 Leo Fries, Haoru Yang
2023 Casmali Lopez, Emerson Worrell, & Anni Zettl
2022 Marston Xue
2021 Abigail Ezell & Ying Wang
2020 Haley Colgate, Cinea Jenkins, Hank Li & Vladi Vintu
2019 Sophie Aiken & Sam Kottler
2018 Bob Kuo & Hambo Shao
2017 Blake Jackson
2016 Melissa Jay
2015 Gautam Webb
2014 Denali Molitor
2013 Cory Scott
2012 Nicholas Pascucci & Evan Ranken
2011 Lauren Hinkle
2010 Sarh Wolfe & Lung Li
2009 Molly Moran
2008 Jessica Coyle & Tra Ho
2007 (not awarded)
2006 Courtney Gibbons & Yulan Qing
2005 Rahbar Virk
2004 Stephen Limburg
2003 Yuichiro Yasutomo and Josh King
2001 Adam Pringle
2000 Margaret Beck
1998 Carlynn Garrett
1997 Barry Balof
1995 Stephen Talley
1994 Evan Moran and David Carlson
1993 Lewis Biscamp
1992 Laura Hegerle
1990 Christopher Pounds
1988 Nara Thacher
1987 John Buchholz
1986 Shane Hubler

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