Akamai Presidential Fellowships

Started as an MIT research project in the late 1990s and co-founded by mathematics professor Tom Leighton, Akamai Technologies uses mathematical algorithms to speed the delivery of internet content worldwide. In recognition of our department’s role in creating this successful company, we award five Akamai Presidential Fellowships annually for first-year graduate study. Fellowship recipient David Jackson-Hanen describes below how this funding has helped him.

“I would like to thank Akamai for providing what has thus far been a terrific experience at MIT. The availability of full funding for the first year of graduate school, and the corresponding freedom to focus more completely on purely academic pursuits, has been an invaluable resource for myself and other new MIT students.

“Generally, my mathematical interests lie in the areas of differential geometry and topology. As an undergraduate I wrote my senior thesis on gauge theory, in particular the Seiberg-Witten equations on four manifolds. While extensions of that theory are certainly still being very actively studied, it seems to me like some of the most exciting work today is being done in symplectic geometry, and at the moment that is where I am leaning towards directing my interest. One of the wonderful things about MIT’s math department is that because geometry and topology are so strong here, with so many people working in different areas, I have the freedom to search around before making a final commitment.”

For information on making a gift to the Mathematics Department, please contact Senior Director of Development for Mathematics Erin McGrath Tribble at or 617-452-2807.

This was originally published in the 2009 Integral.