Nouvelles
Professors François Soumis and Ke Wu, winners of the 2014 Prix du Québec
The Prix du Québec are awarded each year to honour scientists who have made their mark with a remarkable career in their field
of activity, or to crown a career dedicated to research management and development or to promoting science and technology.
These awards are the highest distinction given by the Government of Québec to express society's gratitude to people who have contributed to Québec's social and scientific advancement. Each of the winners receives a non-taxable bursary of $30,000, a medal crafted by a Québec artisan following a public competition, a parchment certificate drawn up in calligraphy, and a lapel pin bearing the Prix du Québec symbol.
Professor François Soumis, winner of the 2014 Prix Lionel-Boulet
Category: Scientist
François Soumis is closely linked with the rapid progress of mathematical decomposition methods, such as
column generation, Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition, Bender's decomposition and constraint aggregation. He explains: “Major
optimization problems that use millions of variables and tens of thousands of constraints exceed a computer's memory.
Decomposition methods resolve a suite of smaller problems that contain a sub-set of variables and constraints. Mathematical
methods make it possible to establish how to gradually modify these subsets in order to end up including all the necessary
elements to obtain an optimal solution.”
Read Professor Soumis's full profile
Professor Ke Wu, winner of the 2014 Prix Marie-Victorin
Category: Scientist
What if our cellphone batteries never died? This is what Ke Wu sees happening within 10 years. According to the engineer,
who has been a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal since 1992, it will be possible
to charge or power our mobile devices using the energy from the air around us, which moves in the form of electromagnetic
waves. The concept of wireless energy transmission is gaining ground, but this is hardly Ke Wu's first innovation. True to his
philosophy of leading original studies in the aim of making a marked difference in scientific and social milieus, this
researcher is behind 30 major inventions!
Read Professor Wu's full profile
See also:
Interview with Professor Soumis (in French
only)
Professor Soumis's expertise
Interview with Professor Wu (in French
only)
Professor Wu's expertise
Source: Prix du Québec website
Photo: Rémy Boily
