David Darrow Named Churchill Scholar

MIT Math senior David Darrow received a prestigious 2022 Churchill Scholarship to pursue an MPhil in scientific computing at Cambridge University. This scholarship is awarded to individuals with exceptional academic talent and outstanding achievement.

David has researched internal diffusion-limited aggregation with David Jerison, symplectic topology with Daniel Alvarez-Gavela, and protein folding with doctoral student George Stepaniants. He also is a mentor with MIT PRIMES and the MIT Undergraduate Mathematics Association.

Read more about the Churchill awards in MIT News.
There’s also a great profile of David in this MIT News article.

Congratulations David!

Richard Stanley Receives AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement

Richard Stanley will receive the American Mathematical Society’s 2022 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, at the upcoming Joint Mathematics Meetings.

He was cited for revolutionizing enumerative combinatorics, "revealing deep connections with other branches of mathematics, such as commutative algebra, topology, algebraic geometry, probability, convex geometry, and representation theory."

This is Richard's second Steele Prize. In 2001, he was awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition, for his two-volume work, Enumerative Combinatorics.

Congratulations Richard!

Michel Goemans Receives AMS Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research

Michel Goemans and David Williamson PhD ’93 will receive the American Mathematical Society’s 2022 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research for their paper, "Improved Approximation Algorithms for Maximum Cut and Satisfiability Problems Using Semidefinite Programming." This paper, which introduced a novel way to approximate hard combinatorial problems, "has had major, sustained impact on the fields of theoretical computer science and optimization theory," according to the AMS.

They will be recognized for their achievement at the upcoming Joint Mathematics Meetings.

Congratulations Michel and David!

Graduate Students Receive Lusztig and Bershadsky PRIMES Mentorships

From left: Arun Kannan, Yibo Gao, Marisa Gaetz, YounHun Kim, and Prof. George Lusztig

Four graduate students received the 2022 named PRIMES mentorships for exceptional mentor service.

Three received the 2022 George Lusztig Mentorships. Marisa Gaetz ’20 is a PRIMES Circle coordinator and DPR mentor. Yibo Gao ’17 has served as a PRIMES, SPUR+, UROP+, DRP, and RSI mentor. One of his PRIMES students won 4th place in the 2020 Regeneron STS, and three others were 2020 Yau Science Award USA semifinalists. Arun Kannan has served as a PRIMES and DRP mentor. One of Kannan's PRIMES students, Honglin Zhu, was selected as a 2021 Regeneron STS Scholar for his paper, jointly written with Kannan, that appeared in the Journal of Algebra.

The Bershadsky Mentor Award, courtesy of Michael and Victoria Bershadsky, goes to YounHun Kim, who has served as a PRIME, MathROOTS, RSI, and DRP mentor. One of his PRIMES students was a Regeneron STS finalist, and his RSI student was a semifinalist.

Congratulations Arun, Marisa, Yibo, and YounHun, and thank you Professor Lusztig and Michael & Victoria Bershadsky for making these mentorships possible!

First-year PhD Students Travis Dillon and Alex Cohen Receive Morgan Prize Honors

Travis Dillon will receive the 2022 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student. A graduate of Lawrence University, he is recognized for his work in number theory, combinatorics, discrete geometry, and symbolic dynamics.

In addition, Alex Cohen will receive the 2022 Frank and Brennie Morgan Honorable Mention Prize for his undergraduate work at Yale, where he solved a number of long-standing open problems in areas from combinatorics to analysis and partial differential equations.

They will both be awarded at January’s Joint Math Meeting Seattle.

Read more in the MIT News.

Congratulations Travis and Alex!

Semyon Dyatlov Awarded Mikhail Gordin Prize

Semyon Dyatlov will receive the inaugural 2022 Mikhail Gordin Prize at the 2022 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle.

The Mikhail Gordin prize, offered jointly by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the European Mathematical Society (EMS), is awarded to a mathematician working in probability or dynamical systems, with preference given to early career mathematicians from or professionally connected to an Eastern European country.

Semyon is recognized for his work on quantum chaos, scattering theory and, in particular, differentiable dynamical systems.

Congratulations Semyon!