Report by Andreas Griewank (April 2015)

1. I am writing from Ekaterinburg in the Urals where I give a short course on Nonsmooth optimization, which I developed partially for a DAAD summer school that I gave last summer in Novi Sad Serbia. Apart from a purely scientific motivation I believe that it is very important to maintain the dialogue with countries that have been designated pariahs by some mostly ill-informed politicians in the West. Especially here in Russia the poor command of English amongst students and staff is a real obstacle to scientific exchange and development. The library for students of the Ural Federal University has practically no English language books and much of the stuff appears dated and a little insular. Yes, I try to learn Russian but realistically, won't ever reach enough proficiency to deliver a talk in it.
2. At Humboldt I graduated two PhD students from Syria, whose results were pretty marginal, which was reflected in their grade. One of them had a brother killed by a sniper one month before his defense; where he stood is not clear to me. My wife consented for us to guarantee support for his youngest brothers so that he can come to Germany as a political refugee and continue studying chemistry, rather than being drafted into the Syrian army. I do not find movies glorifying the 'service' of snipers to 'their country' or possibly even 'mankind' particularly recommendable.
3. I reached my official retirement age on March 31 but got one year extension at Humboldt. Nevertheless, I am looking for a new job, hopefully in the context of developing countries. Paul Vaderlind and Michel Waldtschmidt have made helpful suggestions, which I am following up. An English colleague gave my name to a head hunter, who is looking for senior faculty for the new university Yachay some 70 kilometers north of Quito. This is a special project of Raffael Correa the just reelected president of Ecuador, left-leaning "but" well-eductaed and wordly-wise. I have been interviewed and visited the place in late March. Very interesting in many respects as I will discuss at Oslo. </ol> </p> </body> </html>