Peccot Lectures


The Peccot Lecture is a semester-long mathematics course given at the Collège de France. Each course is given by a mathematician under 30 years old who has distinguished themselves by their promising work. The course consists in a series of conferences during which the laureate exposes their recent research works.
Being a Peccot lecturer is a dinstinction that often foresees an exceptional scientific career. Several future recipients of the Fields Medal, Abel Prize, members of the French Academy of Sciences, and professors at the Collège de France are among the laureates. Some of the most illustrious recipients include Émile Borel and the Fields medalists Laurent Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Serre, or Alain Connes.
Some Peccot lectures may additionally be granted – exceptionally and irregularly – the Peccot prize or the Peccot–Vimont prize.

History

The Peccot lectures are among several manifestations organized at the Collège de France which are funded and managed by bequests from the family of Claude-Antoine Peccot, a young mathematician who died while aged 20. Several successive donations to the foundation by Julie Anne Antoinette Peccot and Claudine Henriette Marguerite Lafond – respectively the mother and the godmother of Claude-Antoine Peccot – first allowed to create annual stipend, followed by annual lectureship appointments, awarded to mathematicians under 30 who have proved promising. Since 1918, the Peccot lectures have been enlarged to two or three mathematicians each year.

Laureates

Laureates of the Peccot lecture and prize who subsequently obtained the Fields medal