When the International Mathematical Union awarded Artur Avila the Fields Medal in 2014, it was a historic moment. He became the first Brazilian and the first Latin American to receive mathematics’ most prestigious prize (often dubbed the "Nobel Prize of Mathematics"). For those looking to understand how he achieved this feat—and what he has done since—there is no better tool than his Google Scholar profile.
For those who cannot attend his lectures at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) or IMPA (Rio de Janeiro), the Google Scholar profile is the next best thing. It is a quiet, powerful archive of why Artur Avila is a true giant of 21st-century mathematics. To view the live profile, simply search "Artur Avila Google Scholar" or visit scholar.google.com and enter his name. Look for the profile with the affiliated institutions (IMPA / CNRS / University of Zurich) and the orange Fields Medal icon in the search results.
This is a common issue for international scholars. Google Scholar automatically attempts to merge these, but users may occasionally find a stray paper under a variant spelling. This is a reminder that while Google Scholar is powerful, it is not perfect. Raw citations can be misleading. In mathematics, a high citation count can sometimes mean a paper contains a useful formula or a widely used lemma. Avila’s profile, however, is different. A deep dive shows that he is cited for complete ideas —the "Avila–Forni" theorem, the "Avila–Krikorian" classification, the "Avila–Jitomirskaya" proof of the ten Martini problem.
One of his most fascinating metrics is the Cited by view. When you look at who is citing Avila, you see a "who’s who" of modern mathematics, including other Fields medalists like Cédric Villani and Maryam Mirzakhani. A visit to Avila’s Google Scholar profile also offers a lesson in academic metadata. You may notice a small note: "Also known as: A. Avila, Artur Ávila" . Due to the inclusion of an accent on the 'A' (Ávila) in Portuguese, his papers are sometimes split into different profiles.
