Maryland. Yale and converse theorem Starting in 1977, Ilya divided his time between Tel Aviv University and Yale, directing doctoral dissertations in both places. One of his major works at Yale dealt with the converse theorem which establishes a link between automorphic forms on n by n matrix groups and zeta functions. For n = 1 this theorem is classical. The assertion for n = 2 was proved by André Weil, and the novel version for n = 3 was conceived by Piatetski-Shapiro while he was still a refusenik in the Soviet Union. It took another 25 years and works with other collaborators, in particular his student James Cogdell, before the suitably flexible and powerful general case was completed. The converse theorem has played a role in many of the results known in the direction of the principle of functoriality of Langlands. Last years Ilya showed great strength in battling Parkinson's disease for the last 30 years of his life. His condition worsened in the last 10 years to the point where he was barely able to move and speak, but thanks to extraordinary love and care of his wife Edith, Ilya was still able to travel to many mathematical conferences and keep mathematical contacts. With the help of James Cogdell he was able to continue at the highest level of research until almost his last days. Ilya was an amateur chess player and loved playing chess with his children. In the last 10 years, when it became difficult for him to move and even speak, he still played chess and checkers as a way of communicating with them, and sometimes was even winning. Ilya was married 3 times and had a son, Gregory I. Piatetsky-Shapiro and daughters, Vera Lipkin and Shelly Shapiro Baldwin. Awards and honours Piatetski-Shapiro was elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1978, was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1992–1993, and was the recipient of numerous prizes, including: In 1981, the Israel Prize, for mathematics; and In 1990, the Wolf Prize for Mathematics. In 2020, the Jerusalem Post listed Piatetski-Shapiro as one of the Russian-speaking Jews who shaped Israel. It notes that along with colleague James Cogdell, Piatetski-Shapiro developed the Converse Theorem, which finds some deep relationships between different fields of mathematics. He was invited to address the quadrennial International Mathematical Congress — one of the highest mathematical honors — 4