SPUR Teams Share Rogers Prize

2024

SPUR/SPUR+ (Summer Program in Undergraduate Research) culminated with two teams sharing the 2024 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper.

MIT undergraduates presented individual and joint research projects at the summer 2024 SPUR Conference to judges Semyon Dyatlov, Julee Kim, and Michael Sipser.

Senior Luis Modes and junior Benjamin Li’s paper “Isomorphism between Hall algebra and shuffle algebra” was mentored by Haoshuo Fu and suggested by Zhiwei Yun.

Jonathan Bloom, Benjamin Li, Haoshuo Fu, Benjamin Li, Luis Modes, and David Jerison
From left, Jonathan Bloom, Benjamin Li, Haoshuo Fu, Luis Modes, and David Jerison.

Sophomore Edward Yu and junior Alek Westover’s paper “The Diamond test: A novel affinity tester for boolean functions,” was mentored by Kai Zhe Zeng, and suggested by Dor Minzer.

Alek Westover is flanked by, from left, award presenters Jonathan Bloom and David Jerison
Alek Westover is flanked by, from left, award presenters Jonathan Bloom and David Jerison.

This summer’s RSI (Research Science Institute) Symposium also saw 10 exceptional high school students from around the world present their math research projects, as mentored by our graduate students and led by head mentor Tanya Khovanova.

The SPUR/SPUR+ and RSI math programs are run by lead faculty advisor David Jerison, faculty advisor Jonathan Bloom, and program coordinator André Lee Dixon.

A big thank you to all involved, and congratulations to Alek, Benjamin, Edward, and Luis, and mentors Haoshuo and Kai Zhe.

2023

From left, David Jerison, Yihang Sun, Saba Lepsveridze, and Mehtaab Sawhney

SPUR/SPUR+ (Summer Program in Undergraduate Research) culminated with two teams sharing the 2023 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper.

The judges said that seniors Saba Lepsveridze and Yihang Sun’s paper “Size of the Largest Sum-Free Set in [n]^3,” as mentored by Mehtaab Sawhney, impressed them with a “solution to a longstanding question in additive combinatorics” and congratulated them “for a very lucid presentation.”

This summer’s RSI (Research Science Institute) Symposium also saw 12 exceptional high school students from around the world present their math research projects, as mentored by our graduate students and led by head mentor Tanya Khovanova.


From left, David Jerison, Daniel Santiago, Isaac Lopez, and Michael Law

MIT undergraduates presented individual and joint research projects at the summer 2023 SPUR Conference to judges Davesh Maulik, John Urschel, and David Vogan.

Senior Daniel Santiago and junior Isaac Lopez’s paper “Positive Mass Theorems for Asymptotically Euclidean Smooth Metric Measure Spaces,” as mentored by Michael Law, studied a new iteration of a classical problem in general relativity and “found a very elegant solution to it, which improved on earlier work of (Julius) Baldauf and (Tristan) Ozuch,” said the judges.

The SPUR/SPUR+ and RSI math programs are run by faculty advisor David Jerison and program coordinator André Lee Dixon.

Congratulations, Daniel, Isaac, Saba, and Yihang!

Categories :