The prize named after András Gács, a mathematician, is awarded to young mathematicians who are outstanding educators alongside their scientific work. In keeping with tradition, the award was presented during the Mathematicians’ Concert, held in the Ceremonial Hall of the Faculty of Law at ELTE.
Ágnes Backhausz, a research fellow at Rényi Institute's Artificial Intelligence Department, whose scientific expertise is diverse: in addition to research on random graph models and graph limit theory, she also works on topics related to the study of epidemic spread and the application of AI.
Her excellent scientific work is marked by the Erdős Prize and the Bolyai Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Since 2020, she has been leading one branch of the mentoring program for young researchers at Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics. Her teaching style is characterized by a strong emphasis on precision; she supports her lectures and seminars with carefully prepared notes and presentation slides, and students who encounter difficulties can rely on her professional guidance. In addition, she is active in science communication and in the broader scientific community. Alongside her research at Rényi Institute, Ágnes is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of ELTE university in Budapest. As a researcher experienced in talent development, she will be one of the speakers at this year’s National Girls’ Day program at Rényi Institute on April 23, 2026.
The other awardee, Zsigmond Tarcsay, carries out his teaching work with exemplary preparedness and conscientiousness. Over the course of his career, he has taught more than 30 different mathematics courses at ELTE, BME, and Corvinus University, at a wide range of levels: to mathematicians, mathematics teachers, physicists, environmental science students, and more recently to data science students and analysts in economics and financial mathematics. He is also responsible for all functional analysis courses in the mathematics program at ELTE. His scientific achievements are reflected in nearly 50 publications in international journals. His results have been recognized, among others, with the Géza Grünwald Memorial Medal and the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Beyond research, he also devotes time to science outreach.
| The Gács András Prize was established in 2017 by the Gács family with the aim of recognizing young university mathematicians who excel in teaching and motivate many students. The prize is named after András Gács (1969–2009), a mathematician who inspired his students not only through his research but also through his versatility, openness, and sense of humor. The prize is awarded once a year to one, or in justified cases two, recipients. Candidates must be under the age of 46 and may receive it only once. Nominations may be submitted by members of the board of trustees, heads of the relevant departments, or anyone else. In the nomination, it is sufficient to provide a list of publications (even in the form of an online reference, e.g. MTMT, a national scientific publications' catalogue) regarding the candidate’s research results. However, a detailed account must be given of the candidate’s achievements in teaching (e.g. supervision of student research projects, theses, PhD work, etc.) and their support for students. Winners are selected by the board of trustees, whose founding members included Zsófia Gács (as founder), Tamás Keleti (ELTE Institute of Mathematics), Zoltán Lóránt Nagy, Péter Sziklai, Tamás Szőnyi, Zsuzsa Weiner (MTA–ELTE Research Group in Geometric and Algebraic Combinatorics), and Gábor Wiener (BME Department of Computer Science and Information Theory). At its founding, the prize amounted to a net 150,000 HUF, which the board increased to a net 200,000 HUF from 2023. |
Among the mathematicians who have received the Gács András Prize since its establishment in 2017, several are researchers at Rényi Institute, among them Gergely Zábrádi (Number Theory Research Department), Péter Csikvári (Graph Theory Department), Márton Elekes (Set Theory, Logic and Topology Department), Péter Frenkel (Algebra Department), and Dömötör Pálvölgyi, who is also a research professor in the Graph Theory Department.
The Prize
The base of the award is a Euclidean object, a cuboid. Attached to it with a flexible, movable connection is the main body of the prize, whose form is inspired by a finite projective plane: a model of the famous Fano plane, connected to András Gács’s research area of finite geometry. The object was designed by the design company koino., founded by young artists.
(This article was prepared using the official announcement.)