Pavel Etingof

Bio

Pavel Etingof is Professor of Mathematics (since 2005) and the Chief Research Advisor of the MIT PRIMES Program (Program for Research in Mathematics, Engineering and Science for High School Students) since 2010.

Etingof received the M.S. in applied mathematics from the Moscow Oil & Gas Institute in 1989, and the Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 1994. Igor Frenkel was his thesis advisor. He went to Harvard as a Benjamin Peirce Assistant Professor in 1994, and joined the MIT mathematics faculty as assistant professor in 1998 (professor by 2005). Etingof's research interests are primarily in studies which intersect representation theory and mathematical physics, such as quantum groups. He serves as chief editor of the Journal of the AMS and of Selecta Math. He has co-authored 8 texts. He served as Chair of the Graduate Student Committee from 2002-05. In 1999 Etingof received a Clay Mathematics Institute Prize fellowship. In 2012 he was selected to be the Robert E. Collins Distinguished Scholar in the Mathematics Department. He was named a Fellow of the AMS in the 2013 Inaugural Class. He was selected by the Institute for the Frank E. Perkins Award for excellence in graduate advising in 2015, and again in 2018. In 2016 he was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2010, Etingof launched the Math Department's MIT PRIMES program with Dr. Slava Gerovitch, to be a free outreach program for high school students with a particular focus on increasing the representation of women and under-served minorities in mathematics research. https://math.mit.edu/research/highschool/primes/

In 2020, the AMS announced that the MIT Mathematics Department was selected for the 2020 Award for Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department for its PRIMES Program. The award is given to “a department that has distinguished itself by undertaking an unusual or particularly effective program of value to the mathematics community, internally or in relation to the rest of society.” PRIMES also received an AMS Epsilon grant in 2020, for rigorous summer programs for mathematically talented youth. In 2021, MIT PRIMES was selected for MIT's 47th Annual MLK Leadership Award.