Mathematics in Albania started mostly with the establishment of the Faculty of Sciences in Tirana, after World War II, even though there had been Albanian mathematicians trained abroad before that.
The communist government tried to establish the Department of Mathematics at the University of Tirana as a research department, however its efforts were hampered because it selected only people who were favored by the communist party and left out a large proportion of the population branded as "kulaks", "the enemy of the working class", etc. Only very few mathematicians close to the communist government were able to go abroad during the period 1960-1990. They produced very little in terms of research. The Department of Mathematics at the University of Tirana never became a research department and its efforts mostly were focused on training teachers of mathematics for middle schools and high schools.
After the fall of communism many young people went to study mathematics to Western Europe and North America. Currently there are many Albanians who hold academic positions in research universities in mathematics.
Born in Vlora (Albania) his family was sent to Kocul by the communist government when he was only a few months old. Tanush graduated from "Gjimnazi Halim Xhelo" in 1985. In high school he won the first place in the mathematical olympiad in the city of Vlora, but was not allowed to represent the city in the national olympiad because his family was considered 'kulaks' by the government. During 1988-89 he did the mandatory service in the Albanian army.
In the Fall 1990, he was allowed to attend the University of Tirana as a student of veterinary but changed to mathematics. In February 1991 he participated in the hunger strike against the communist government, but left Albania in March after the university was closed. He stayed in Italy during the period March-September and went to United States in 1991.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Michigan on December 1994. Tony received a PhD in Mathematics in Spring 2001 from the University of Florida, working under the direction of Helmut Völklein and John Thompson. He held a postdoctorate position at the University of California at Irvine (2001-2003) and a tenure track position at the University of Idaho (2003-2005), until he moved to Oakland University in 2005 where he continues to this day. Prof. Shaska founded the Albanian Journal of Mathematics in 2007.
Enkelejd graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Tirana in 1992. He enrolled in the graduate program in mathematics at the University of Bern where he graduated with a PhD in 1999. Currently he is a Professor at the Department of Actuarial Sciences at the University of Lausanne.
Prof. Hashorva have many papers in the field of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences.
Giacomo Albanese was an Italian mathematician from the Albanian community in Italy. Albanese was a student of Bertini at Pisa. Albanese's research involved examining curves on algebraic surfaces and the genus of an algebraic variety.
He considered the problem of resolution of singularities, a major problem in algebraic geometry, and produced some elegant results. He pioneered investigations related to the Riemann-Roch problem and studied the rational equivalence of 0-cycles on surfaces. His name is remembered today for Albanese varieties used as a standard tool in algebraic geometry.
One of the best talents coming out of Albania in the last few decades. Gjergji Zaimi won honorable mention in the IMO 2003, Bronze Medal in IMO 2004, and Silver Medal in IMO 2005, 2006.
Gjergji studied mathematics at California Technology. His area of research is combinatorial aspects of algebraic geometry, more specifically Hilbert schemes, Del Pezzo surfaces. Gjergji has several publications.