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Report on a Recent Meeting

2nd Bachelier Colloquium in Stochastic Calculus and
Finance: 9-15 January 2005

The Colloquium was organised by the Bachelier Society and the University of Besancon, under the auspices of the Bernoulli Society and with the financial support from ETH, Zurich, and BNP Paribas Bank, London. The event was held in a nice mountain place in the Alps, Metabief, France, some 50 miles east of Becanson.

Jean Jacod and Albert Shirayev

The Colloquium brought together not only leading but also young researchers (pictured below) in the area of stochastic calculus with financial applications. The event was dedicated to the 70th birthday of Professor Albert Shiryaev (Moscow), an outstanding contributor to modern stochastics and their applications. Of the 75 participants from all over the world, more than a half were former students or co-authors of Albert. The mornings were scheduled for … skiing. There was only one afternoon session, usually continuing after the dinner. Everyone congratulated Albert in a unique way, or telling a story. Jean Jacod, one of the plenary speakers and the President elect of the Bachelier Society, greeted Albert, underling his prominent role as President of the Bachelier Society in 1989-1991. Among the (non)surprises were the announcements about honors given to Professor Shiryaev by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of South California (Los Angeles).
In some mysterious way the great academic spirit typical of Moscow State University and the Steklov Mathematical Institute moved to the Alps for a week. It was a remarkable and memorable event: groups of people, sitting or standing, were talking about current problems, under the blue sky at a temperature of –10oC. This does not happen every day!

Albert Shiryaev himself presented three impressive lectures in what is called Shiryaev’s style. With the same enthusiasm as a 33 year old, he presented curious details about the beginning of his study under the supervision of Andrey N. Kolmogorov, and then covering some very recent progress, especially in the area of sequential analysis.

For everybody, the colloquium was a great satisfaction and inspiration. Besides the many toasts for Albert, the participants thanked also Yu Kabanov and C. Stricker for their efficiency before and during the event.

— Jordan Stoyanov