The Spanish royal family was in Catalonia today, as princess Leonor, first in line to the throne, handed out the princess of Girona awards for the first time. As thousands protested outside the venue, one of the recipients, Xavier Ros-Oton, made his own, small gesture of protest inside.
Ros-Oton, currently an assistant professor in Mathematics at the University of Zurich, was seen wearing a yellow ribbon, a symbol of support for the imprisoned Catalan pro-independence leaders.
Born in Barcelona in 1988, Ros-Oton earned his doctorate from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, since when he has held positions at universities in the USA and Switzerland. The prize committee describes him as "one of the most brilliant mathematicians and most impactful internationally of his age range." His research focuses on elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations, "a central field in many scientific disciplines".