The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) is an international scientific organization formed in 1990 to increase the visibility and influence of the combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors conferences, publishes a bulletin and awards a number of medals, including the Euler, Hall, Kirkman, and Stanton Medals. It is based in Duluth, Minnesota and its operation office is housed at University of Minnesota Duluth.University of Minnesota Duluth The institute was minimally active between 2010 and 2016 and resumed its full activities in March 2016.
Membership The ICA has over 800 members in over forty countries. Membership is at three levels. Members are those who have not yet completed a Ph.D. Associate Fellows are younger members who have received the Ph.D. or have published extensively; normally an Associate Fellow should hold the rank of assistant professor. Fellows are expected to be established scholars and typically have the rank of associate professor or higher. Some members are involved in highly theoretical research; there are members whose primary interest lies in education and instruction; and there are members who are heavily involved in the applications of combinatorics in statistical design, communications theory, cryptography, computer security, and other practical areas.
Although being a fellow of the ICA is not itself a highly selective honor, the ICA also maintains another class of members, "honorary fellows", people who have made "pre-eminent contributions to combinatorics or its applications". The number of living honorary fellows is limited to ten at any time. The deceased honorary fellows include H. S. M. Coxeter, Paul Erdős, Haim Hanani, Bernhard Neumann, D. H. Lehmer, Leonard Carlitz, Robert Frucht, E. M. Wright, and Horst Sachs. Living honorary fellows include S. S. Shrikhande, C. R. Rao, G. J. Simmons, Vera Sós, Henry Gould, Carsten Thomassen, Neil Robertson, Cheryl Praeger, and R. M. Wilson.
Publication
The ICA publishes the Bulletin of the ICA (), a journal that combines publication of survey and research papers with news of members and accounts of future and past conferences. It appears three times a year, in January, May and September and usually consists of 128 pages.
Beginning in 2017, the research articles in the Bulletin have been made available on an open access basis.
Medals
The ICA awards the Euler Medals annually for distinguished career contributions to combinatorics by a member of the institute who is still active in research. It is named after the 18th century mathematician Leonhard Euler.
The ICA awards the Hall Medals, named after Marshall Hall, Jr., to recognize outstanding achievements by members who are not over age 40.
The ICA awards the Kirkman Medals, named after Thomas Kirkman, to recognize outstanding achievements by members who are within four years past their Ph.D.
The winners of the medals for the years between 2010 and 2015 were decided by the ICA Medals Committee between November 2016 and February 2017 after the ICA resumed its activities in 2016.
In 2016, the ICA voted to institute an ICA medal to be known as the Stanton Medal, named after Ralph Stanton, in recognition of substantial and sustained contributions, other than research, to promoting the discipline of combinatorics. The Stanton Medal honours significant lifetime contributions to promoting the discipline of combinatorics through advocacy, outreach, service, teaching and/or mentoring. At most one medal per year is to be awarded, typically to a Fellow of the ICA.
List of Euler Medal winners
YearWinners2025Leo Storme2024Gyula O. H. Katona2023Jennifer Seberry2022George Andrews2021Hendrik Van Maldeghem2020Marston Conder2019 no medal awarded 2018 Dieter Jungnickel2017 Fan Chung2016James Hirschfeld2015 No medal awarded2014Brian Alspach2013Curt Lindner2012Alex Rosa2011Cheryl Praeger2010Bojan Mohar 2009 – no medal awarded – 2008 Gábor Korchmáros 2007 Stephen Milne, Heiko Harborth 2006 Clement W. H. Lam, Nick Wormald 2005 Ralph Faudree, Aviezri Fraenkel 2004 Doron Zeilberger, Zhu Lie 2003 Peter Cameron, Charles Colbourn 2002 Herbert Wilf 2001 Spyros Magliveras 2000 Richard A. Brualdi, Horst Sachs 1999 D. K. Ray-Chaudhuri 1998 Peter Ladislaw Hammer, Anthony Hilton 1997 – no medal awarded – 1996 J.H. van Lint 1995 Hanfried Lenz 1994 Joseph A. Thas 1993 Claude Berge, Ronald Graham
List of Hall Medal winners
YearWinners2025Hong Liu and Binzhou Xia 2024Geertrui Van de Voorde and Rjko Nenadov 2023Jan Goedgebeur and Kenta Ozeki2022Jan De Beule and Pablo Spiga2021Tao Feng and Anita Pasotti2020 Jie Ma2019Koen Thas and Jeroen Schillewaert2018Kai-Uwe Schmidt2017John Bamberg and Daniel Horsley2016 – no medal awarded – 2015Lijun Ji2014Peter Dukes2013Bart De Bruyn2012Michael Giudici2011Olga Polverino2010Catherine Greenhill 2009 – no medal awarded – 2008 Ian Wanless 2007 David Pike 2006 Darryn Bryant, Gennian Ge, Heather Jordon 2005 Jonathan Jedwab 2004 Dirk Hachenberger, Masaaki Harada 2003 Antonio Cossidente 2002 Saad El-Zanati 2001 Alfred Menezes, Alexander Pott 2000 Michael Henning, Klaus Metsch 1999 Hendrik Van Maldeghem, Rolf Rees 1998 Marco Buratti, Arrigo Bonisoli 1997 Reinhard Diestel 1996 Christos Koukouvinos, Christine O'Keefe, Tim Penttila 1995 Donald Kreher 1994 Ortrud Oellermann, Chris Rodger, Doug Stinson
List of Kirkman Medal winners
YearWinners2025Chi Hoi Yip, Peter Bradshaw 2024Jozefien D'Haeseleer, Zixiang Xu 2023Yifan Jing, Sam Mattheus2022Melissa Huggan, Ziqing Xiang2021Yujie Gu, Natasha Morrison2020 Chong Shangguan2019 Tao Zhang 2018 Alexander Bors, Shuxing Li 2017 Hengjia Wei, Binzhou Xia 2016 Yue Zhou2015Padraig Ó Catháin2014Daniele Bartoli2013Tommaso Traetta2012Rebecca Stones, Xiande Zhang2011Tao Feng2010Daniel Horsley, Kai-Uwe Schmidt 2009 – no medal awarded – 2008 Nick Cavenagh, Futaba Okamoto 2007 Petteri Kaski, Peter Dukes 2006 John Bamberg, Giuseppe Marino, Koen Thas 2005 Michael Giudici, Matt Walsh 2004 Andreas Enge, Jon-Lark Kim 2003 Ken-ichi Kawarabayashi, Mateja Sajna, Sanming Zhou 2002 Ian Wanless 2001 Matthew Brown, Alan Ling, Ying Miao 2000 Michael Raines 1999 Nicholas Hamilton, Qing Xiang 1998 Peter Adams, Cai Heng Li 1997 Makoto Matsumoto, Bernhard Schmidt 1996 Gregory Gutin, Patric R. J. Östergård 1995 Darryn Bryant 1994 Robert Craigen, Jonathan Jedwab
List of Stanton Medal winners
YearWinners2025 Gary Mullen2024 - no medal awarded -2023 - no medal awarded -2022Doug Stinson2021Gary Chartrand2020 - no medal awarded - 2019 Charlie Colbourn 2018 – no medal awarded – 2017 Robin Wilson 2016 Ronald Mullin
References
External links Official Website