Today, the Governor of the Mexican State of Oaxaca, Lic. Gabino Cué Monteagudo, and the Director General of the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT), Dr. Enrique Cabrero Mendoza, announced an infrastructure grant of 43-million pesos towards funding the construction and the operations of Casa Matematica Oaxaca (CMO), a research facility affiliated with the Banff International Research Station (BIRS).

The research facility will be built on a lot adjacent to El Centro de las Artes (CASA) that was generously donated by the eminent Mexican artist, Francisco Toledo. The Center is located in San Agustín Etla, a town that lies in a picturesque canyon in the foothills of the Sierra de San Felipe seventeen miles north of the city of Oaxaca.

Twenty-five BIRS workshops have already been selected to run at CMO in 2015. These will be in addition to the 52 workshops that will be hosted at Banff. For the remaining part of the year, CMO will be hosting summer schools and math education workshops for high schools teachers and students.

We would like to thank our Mexican colleagues, who have been working tirelessly towards making this exciting initiative a reality, in particular, Dr. José Antonio De la Peña, Director of CIMAT, Dr. Carlos Arámburo, vice-rector for research at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), as well as UNAM’s Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Maria Emilia Caballero. Special thanks also go to members of the BIRS Board, Dr. Javier Bracho, Director of Instituto de Matemáticas, (UNAM), and former Mexican Cabinet minister, Dr. Juan Ramón de la Fuente.

We are greatly indebted to Dr. Enrique Cabrero Mendoza, and to Dr. Elias Micha (Deputy Director of Regional Development at CONACyT), whose commitment to a pan-American vision for science and technology, made this North-American collaborative effort possible. Special thanks go to Governor Lic. Gabino Cué Monteagudo and to Mtro. Fr Francisco Toledo for bringing this international initiative to the state of Oaxaca. The world’s scientific community owes them all a great deal of gratitude.

Doug Mitchell, Chair of the Board of BIRS
Nassif Ghoussoub, BIRS Scientific Director

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