The Andy is named for Andy Bruckner, now at the ripe age of 94 and Professor Emeritus at the University of California Santa Barbara. Andy has long been a member of the real analysis community. In 1979 we held the 2nd Summer Symposium in Real Analysis at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee with Bruckner as the main speaker. On the last day of the conference and after the final talk, Richard O’Malley (the Conference Director) surprised everyone with a long completely fabricated story about how other areas had awards but we in real analysis had nothing. Moreover, the personality of our group was so different that any award we would have would have to be light hearted rather than heavily prestigious. No one had any idea of what Richard was talking about and Richard was laughing so hard that he could barely continue. We were all laughing with him too. As this most creative story came to a close, Richard declared that he’d decided on an award that would forever remind the world of Andy Bruckner’s bald head. He then revealed an enormous onion.

That was the first ”Andy” and we’ve given one at every real anakysis conference since 1979. A list of all Andy recipients can be found at:

www.realanalexch.org

In the spirit of light-heartedness, an onion became an immediate tradition and along with it that we do not refer to ”winning” the Andy, but rather to ”receiving ” the Andy. It can be pointed out, however, that several Andy recipients have garnered major research awards. No Field Medalists yet, but Mik Laczkovich (1984) and David Preiss (1982) are both Ostrowski Prize winners (David has both Ostrowski and Andy listed on his curriculum vita). Jack Brown (1989) and Dan Mauldin (2001) have been recognized with research awards from the US government. Many Andy recipients hold or have held Chaired Professorships and have given invited talks at the ICM.  One Andy recipient presented her first professional paper at one of our symposia and later became the youngest person ever to be named a full professor at the University of London.

But despite the serious nature of our research the ”Andy” has remained, as Richard O’Malley envisioned it, light-hearted and still reflects the personality of our community. And it has helped keep us focused on the importance of ”community” to our research community.

Best Wishes,

p

[Paul Humke, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, USA]