# News Archive

Past news announcements from the department homepage.

### 2023

• March 27: Peter Shor Awarded Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture and Medal

• March 2: Killian Award Lecture

#### Killian Award Lecture

• February 16: Peter Baddoo, 1993-2023

It is with a sense of deep sorrow that we write to inform you of an unexpected and tragic loss in the Math community. On Wednesday afternoon, Feb 15, our department was notified of the sudden passing of Peter Baddoo, at the age of 29, by cardiac arrest while playing basketball on campus.

Peter studied mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, then completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He was an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow at Imperial College prior to joining our department as an Instructor in January 2021.

Peter was a brilliant applied mathematician with broad research interests and activities that spanned complex function theory, fluid dynamics, and machine learning and data-driven methods. He was an exemplary teacher and colleague who gave generously of his time in assisting colleagues, graduate students and undergraduates alike. He was a catalyst in organizing social events for our postdoctoral fellows and instructors, for which he received a Math Community Service Award.

Peter was a lively, joyful young man, a gentle soul with a kind spirit and a ready smile. His interests extended well beyond mathematics, and included music (saxophone) and sport (lacrosse, squash and basketball). He dearly loved his family and friends, and was a devoted member of the Park Street Church. His last years were blessed by the love of his life who he was to marry this spring. Peter will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

MIT News Obituary

• February 16: MIT Takes All of the Top Honors in 83rd Putnam Competition

#### MIT Takes All of the Top Honors in 83rd Putnam Competition

For the third time in the history of the annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, and for the third year in a row, all five of the top spots in the contest, known as Putnam Fellows, came from a single school — MIT.

Putnam Fellows are first years Papon Lapate and Luke Robitaille, sophomore Brian Liu, junior Mingyang Deng, and senior Daniel Zhu. Daniel has placed as a Fellow every year he has competed in the exam.

The 2022 Putnam team, listed in alphabetical order, are Deng, Robitaille, and Zhu. Teams are based on the three top scorers from each institution. This is the MIT team's seventh first-place win in the past nine competitions.

Junior Binwei Yan, who finished in the top 15, received the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize, which includes a $1,000 award. She is the sixth MIT student to receive this honor since the award began in 1992. MIT students also dominated the rest of the scoreboard: 9 of the next 11 (each awarded$1,000), 7 of the next 9 (each awarded $250), and 49 of the 75 honorable mention rankings. In total, 70 out of the top 100 test-takers overall were MIT students. Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's exam! A full list of the winners can be found on the Putnam website. Read more in the MIT News. • February 16: Jeremy Hahn Receives Sloan Research Fellowship #### Jeremy Hahn Receives Sloan Research Fellowship Jeremy Hahn '13 PD'18, who recently joined our faculty in 2021, was awarded the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship. He is the Rockwell International Career Development Assistant Professor of Mathematics. Jeremy's research is in in algebraic topology and homotopy theory. With collaborators, he has done work in equivariant chromatic homotopy theory, the classification of high-dimensional manifolds, and the redshift conjectures in algebraic K-theory. He hopes to better understand the behavior of new invariants of ring spectra, such as syntomic and prismatic cohomology. He is among nine new MIT Sloan Fellows this year. Including this year's recipients, a total of 327 MIT faculty have received Sloan Research Fellowships since they began in 1955. Altogether, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation selected 126 U.S. and Canadian early-career scholars across seven fields for the two-year,$75,000 fellowship to further their research program.

Congratulations everyone!

• January 10: Mathematicians Awarded at JMM 2023

#### Mathematicians Awarded at JMM 2023

Several members of the Department of Mathematics community were recognized for their achievements at the recent Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston.

Collecting prizes at the annual conference included professors Tom Mrowka, Bjorn Poonen, and Scott Sheffield, CLE Moore instructor Jia Shi, seniors Anqi Li and Ilani Axelrod-Freed, and alums Letong Carina Hong ’22 and Nataša Šešum PhD ’04.

Congratulations to all!

### 2022

• December 15: Tom Mrowka Receives AMS Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research

#### Tom Mrowka Receives AMS Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research

Tom Mrowka and his longtime Harvard collaborator Peter Kronheimer will receive the American Mathematical Society’s 2023 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research for their joint paper Gauge Theory for Embedded Surfaces.

“This paper introduced new notions and developed sophisticated new technology that has played and continues to play a central role in gauge theory and low-dimensional topology,” according to the AMS citation.

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

Congratulations, Tom!

• December 15: Pavel Etingof Elected Member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts

#### Pavel Etingof Elected Member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts

Pavel Etingof has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Academy members are elected for their outstanding achievements in science, arts and governance and hold exceptional standing in society as a result of their scientific work, publications or leadership.

To celebrate his achievement, we enlisted chatGPT of OpenAI to generate a poem about Pavel:

Pavel Etingof, master of math,
Whose mind is sharp and nimble,
Has been elected to the European Academy,
Where his contributions will be celebrated fully.

His work in representation theory,
Has helped to advance our understanding,
Of complex mathematical concepts,
That have long been demanding.

But he is not just a scholar,
His mentoring skills are second to none,
As the Chief Research Advisor of the PRIMES program,
He has helped many young minds to become.

And in his spare time,
He can be found in the forest,
Foraging for mushrooms,
His knowledge of which is the best,

Is truly impressive,
And his love of nature,
Shines through in all that he does,

We celebrate this momentous occasion,
And honor the achievements of our colleague and friend,
May he continue to excel and innovate,
In the pursuit of knowledge without end.

Congratulations, Pavel!

Four graduate students received the 2023 named PRIMES mentorships for exceptional mentor service.

Three receiving the 2023 George Lusztig Mentorships:

Nitya Mani, who is studying graph theory, probability, and optimization, is a PRIMES, SPUR, and GUMMI mentor, whose PRIMES student Edward Yu won the Gold Medal in Math at the 2022 USA S.-T. Yau High School Science Award.

Mary Stelow is a co-coordinator of PRIMES Circle and has mentored for RSI and DRP, and is a GUMMI co-chair. Her research interests are in gauge theory, Floer theory, and low dimensional topology.

Dr. Kent Vashaw is an NSF Mathematical Science Research postdoc and instructor whose research interests broadly are at the intersection of homological algebra, noncommutative algebra, and representation theory.

The 2023 Bershadsky Mentor Award, courtesy of Michael and Victoria Bershadsky, is awarded to Julius Baldauf ’19, who been both a student and mentor for DRP, SPUR, and UROP, and is active with Yulia's Dream. Julius was awarded the Rogers Prize for the best SPUR paper in 2018, and the Charles and Holly Housman Award for excellence in teaching in 2022. Julius' research interests are in geometry and analysis.

Congratulations Nitya, Mary, Kent, and Julius, and thank you Professor Lusztig and Michael & Victoria Bershadsky for making these mentorships possible!

• December 15: Seniors Anqi Li and Ilani Axelrod-Freed Honored with Schafer Prize

#### Seniors Anqi Li and Ilani Axelrod-Freed Honored with Schafer Prize

Two seniors were honored with the Association for Women in Mathematics’ annual Alice T. Schafer Prize for excellence in mathematics by an undergraduate woman.

Anqi Li has been named the runner-up, and Ilani Axelrod-Freed received an honorable mention. Their achievements and statements are on the AWM site, and their prizes will be presented at the upcoming Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston.

Congratulations, Anqi and Ilani!

• December 12: Jia Shi Awarded 2023 AWM Dissertation Prize

#### Jia Shi Awarded 2023 AWM Dissertation Prize

CLE Moore instructor Jia Shi will receive the seventh annual Association for Women in Mathematics Dissertation Prize.

Jia and two others will each be presented with the 2023 AWM Dissertation Prize at the January 4 Joint Prize Session at the 2023 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston.

Mentored by Gigliola Staffilani, Jia is interested in fluid mechanics and partial differential equations. She received her PhD at Princeton University with Charles Fefferman and Javier Gomez-Serrano as advisors.

Congratulations, Jia!

• December 12: Sheffield and Miller Awarded Eisenbud Prize

#### Sheffield and Miller Awarded Eisenbud Prize

Professor Scott Sheffield and former MIT postdoc and instructor Jason P. Miller, now at the University of Cambridge, have been awarded the American Mathematical Society's 2023 Leonard Eisenbud Prize in Mathematics and Physics.

They earned this award "for their monumental series of papers on Liouville Quantum Gravity." The Leonard Eisenbud prize, which honors works that bring mathematics and physics closer together, will be awarded during the January Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston.

“I started working in this general area some 15 or 20 years ago, and at the time had no idea how far it would develop, or how exciting it would turn out to be,” says Scott.

Congratulations, Scott and Jason!

• December 1: Tom Leighton Wins IEEE von Neumann Medal

#### Tom Leighton Wins IEEE von Neumann Medal

Professor Tom Leighton PhD '81, chief executive officer of Akamai Technologies, received the 2023 IEEE John von Neumann medal "for fundamental contributions to algorithm design and their application to content delivery networks."

This award is given for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology.

Congratulations, Tom!

• November 7: Carina Hong ’22 Honored With Morgan Prize

#### Carina Hong ’22 Honored With Morgan Prize

Letong (Carina) Hong '22 will receive the 2023 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student, for proving a number of results and solving conjectures in combinatorics, number theory, and probability.

Carina, a double major in courses 18 and 8 and the former president of the Undergraduate Mathematics Association, is currently at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar for China.

Among others, she thanked her undergraduate advisors Pavel Etingof, "whose kindness and support has been defining in my mathematical journey," Scott Sheffield, "for walking me into the brilliant world of random surfaces with charisma and humor," and Henry Cohn, "for teaching me so much about an intricately charming problem and encouraging me, especially during setbacks."

Carina will be receiving her award at the Joint Mathematical meeting in January in Boston.

Congratulations Carina!

• October 27: Bjorn Poonen Wins the 2023 Doob Prize

#### Bjorn Poonen Wins the 2023 Doob Prize

The American Mathematical Society's 2023 Joseph L. Doob Prize is awarded to Bjorn Poonen's 2017 book Rational Points on Varieties, in the series Graduate Studies in Mathematics.

The citation called his book "an essential reference for anybody who wishes to apply the tools and techniques of modern algebraic geometry to the venerable area of Diophantine equations."

The prize will be awarded at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston this January.

"I am indebted to the many researchers who, motivated by classical Diophantine equations, developed this beautiful subject connecting number theory and algebraic geometry," says Bjorn. "I find it very rewarding to be honored for this, the single mathematical project that I have devoted more of my life to developing than any other."

Read more in the AMS News release.

• October 27: MIT Hosts the 2022 Math Prize for Girls

#### MIT Hosts the 2022 Math Prize for Girls

Congratulations to the winners of the 14th annual Math Prize for Girls, which was hosted by MIT during the weekend of October 7-9, 2022. Created and organized by the Advantage Testing Foundation, the competition drew 240 girls from across the US and Canada to compete for cash prizes.

"This competition encourages more girls to be passionate about mathematics and interested in STEM careers, and this is certainly much-needed," says Department head Michel Goemans.

Read more at the MIT News.

• September 21: Peter Shor Receives Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

#### Peter Shor Receives Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

Peter Shor, Morss Professor and a PhD alum (’85) of our department, has been named the co-recipient of the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics!

He shares this prestigious award with Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, and David Deutsch, for their foundational work in quantum information. Shor’s algorithm finds the prime factors of an integer in polynomial time on a quantum computer, while this is unknown for any classical algorithm. This, and his techniques for error-correction in quantum computers, “paved the way for today’s fast-developing quantum computers,” says the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.

Also, former MIT math faculty member and also PhD alum (’95) Daniel Spielman, now Sterling Professor at Yale U., was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for “breakthrough contributions to theoretical computer science and mathematics, including to spectral graph theory, the Kadison-Singer problem, numerical linear algebra, optimization, and coding theory.”

And our former NSF postdoc Maggie Miller, now at Stanford University and a Clay Research Fellow, earned a Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize for her work on fibered ribbon knots and surfaces in 4-dimensional manifolds.

Read more in the MIT News.

Congratulations to Peter, Dan, and Maggie!

• August 30: Simons Lecture Series: Cynthia Dwork September 19-22

#### Simons Lecture Series: Cynthia Dwork September 19-22

Harvard University Professor Cynthia Dwork will give three lectures September 19, 20 and 22, 2022, on Mathematics and Mores: The Theoretical Underpinnings of Private Data Analysis and Algorithmic Fairness :

• September 19: Differential Privacy and the US Census
• September 20: Differential Privacy: Relaxations, Amplifications, and a Surprising Application
• September 22: The Defining Problem of AI and the Calculus of Inclusion

The lectures are 4:30-5:30 p.m. in 2-190, each preceded by a 4 p.m. reception in 2-290.

The Department of Mathematics annually hosts the Simons Lecture Series featuring presentations by top mathematicians.

Many thanks to Jim and Marilyn Simons for their financial support of these lectures.

• August 1: SPUR Teams Share 2022 Rogers Prize

#### SPUR Teams Share 2022 Rogers Prize

SPUR/SPUR+ (Summer Program in Undergraduate Research) culminated with two teams sharing the 2022 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper.

Senior Milan Haiman's paper "Irreducibility of Generalized Permutahedra, Supermodular Functions, and Balanced Multisets," suggested by their mentor Yannick Yao, "makes a serious contribution to the study of irreducible generalized permutohedra, establishing a double exponential upper bound for the number of such objects in dimension n," stated the judges.

Sophomore Kenta Suzuki's paper "Gelfand-Kirillov Dimension of Representations of GL(n) over a Non-Archimedean Local Field" was mentored by Hao Peng. "Suzuki's paper completely determines the Gelfand-Kirillov dimension of irreducible representations of GL(n) over p-adic fields, by relating the question to the geometry of partial flag varieties," the judges wrote. "Suzuki gave a beautiful presentation of his results and clearly answered many questions from the audience."

MIT undergraduates presented individual and joint research projects at the summer 2022 SPUR Conference to judges Tristan Collins, David Vogan, and Wei Zhang.

This summer's RSI (Research Science Institute) Symposium also saw 10 outstanding high school students from around the world present their math research projects, mentored by graduate students from our department.

The SPUR/SPUR+ and RSI math programs were run by faculty advisors David Jerison and Ankur Moitra, program director Slava Gerovitch, and RSI head mentor Tanya Khovanova.

• July 19: Faculty Promotions for Jörn Dunkel, Andrew Lawrie, and Yufei Zhao

#### Faculty Promotions for Jörn Dunkel, Andrew Lawrie, and Yufei Zhao

The MIT Corporation Executive Committee has approved the following faculty promotions: Jörn Dunkel is now a full professor, and Andrew Lawrie and Yufei Zhao were each promoted to Associate Professor.

Congratulations to Jörn, Andrew, and Yufei!

• July 19: Newly Appointed and Continuing Faculty Chairs

#### Newly Appointed and Continuing Faculty Chairs

The Provost has selected Assistant Professor Tristan Collins to hold the Class of 1948 Career Development Chair, and Assistant Professor Jeremy Hahn as the next Rockwell International Career Assistant Professor of Mathematics. Each will serve three-year terms beginning July 1, 2022.

Also, the Singer Professorship of Bill Minicozzi, the Leighton Family Professorship of Scott Sheffield, and the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professorship of Gigliola Staffilani have all been extended for another five-year term.

Congratulations to all!

• July 19: Department Welcomes Assistant Professor Daniel Álvarez Gavela

#### Department Welcomes Assistant Professor Daniel Álvarez Gavela

Daniel Álvarez Gavela became our newest assistant professor as of July 1.

Specializing in symplectic and contact geometry, Dani joined our department in 2020 as a Simons postdoc, and this past year served as an instructor. Since last year, he has been an organizer of the Boston Informal Symplectic Seminar and the MIT Geometry and Topology Seminar. He is also an active member of the Department's Diversity and Community Building Committee.

Congratulations, Daniel!

• July 19: Plenary and Invited Speakers at July's ICM 22

#### Plenary and Invited Speakers at July's ICM 22

The 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) hosted its virtual conference July 6-14, 2022. Department faculty members who spoke at ICM 2022 included:

Plenary Speakers

Sectional Speakers

• Semyon Dyatlov, "Fractal Uncertainty Principle and Quantum Chaos" (PDEs)
• Elchanan Mossel, "Combinatorial Statistics and the Sciences" (Probability)

Their lectures are available on IMU's YouTube channel.

• July 19: Wei Zhang Is Named Simons Investigator

#### Wei Zhang Is Named Simons Investigator

Professor Wei Zhang was selected to receive a 2022 Simons Investigator award in Mathematics.

This program supports "outstanding theoretical scientists in their most productive years, when they are establishing creative new research directions, providing leadership to the field, and effectively mentoring junior scientists."

He is among 16 of the 2022 Simons Investigators in Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics, and Computer Science.

Congratulations Wei!

• July 19: Dor Minzer Receives Presburger Award

#### Dor Minzer Receives Presburger Award

The European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) selected Assistant Professor Dor Minzer for the 2022 EATCS Presburger Award for Young Scientists "for his deep technical contributions towards resolving the 2-to-2 Games Conjecture."

The Presburger Award is given "for outstanding contributions in theoretical computer science, documented by a published paper or a series of published papers."

Congratulations, Dor!

• June 10: Juncal Arbelaiz Earns Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellowship

#### Juncal Arbelaiz Earns Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellowship

Fifth-year PhD candidate Juncal Arbelaiz has been named a 2022 Schmidt Science Fellow .

This postdoctoral program was created by Schmidt Futures in 2017 to advance interdisciplinary studies among early-career researchers. Juncal, who will be graduating this summer, works with Professors Peko Hosoi and Ali Jadbabaie in the interdisciplinary Sociotechnical System Research Center (SSRC).

Congratulations to Juncal!

• June 10: Students Recognized by 2022 MIT Awards Convocation

#### Students Recognized by 2022 MIT Awards Convocation

Ananya Gurumurthy '23 received the William L. Stewart Jr. Award for outstanding contributions to extracurricular activities and events.

Omomayowa A. Songonuga '22 received the Ronald E. McNair Scholarship Award established in Dr. McNair's honor by the Black Alumni/ae of MIT, to recognize a Black undergraduate who has demonstrated strong academic performance and who has made a considerable contribution to the minority community.

Ben Spector '22 received the Patrick E. McGovern Jr. '59 Entrepreneurship Award for making a significant impact on the quality, visibility, and overall spirit of entrepreneurship education and support across the Institute.

Congratulations to Ananya, Omomayowa, and Ben!

• June 9: Barbara Peskin Receives Institute Excellence Award

#### Barbara Peskin Receives Institute Excellence Award

Academic Administrator Barbara Peskin has been recognized by an Excellence Award in the Outstanding Contributor category at the 2022 Excellence Awards + Collier Medal celebration. She was recognized for her dedication to this department in general, and specifically to its educational mission.

Congratulations, Barbara!

• May 18: Shengtong Zhang Receives Bucsela Prize

#### Shengtong Zhang Receives Bucsela Prize

The 2022 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics has been awarded to senior math major Shengtong Zhang for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics.

Congratulations, Shengtong!

• May 18: Phi Beta Kappa Inducts 17 Mathematics Seniors

#### Phi Beta Kappa Inducts 17 Mathematics Seniors

The Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected 17 mathematics majors, among 82 electees from MIT's Class of 2022, to become members. Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest academic honor society with a very selective invitation process. Membership is awarded to students in recognition of excellent academic records and commitment to the objectives of a liberal education.

Congratulations to our newest members of Phi Beta Kappa!

• May 18: Teaching and Learning Awards

#### Teaching and Learning Awards

The Department of Mathematics recognized math majors with Teaching and Learning awards, for their contributions to teaching.

Professor Steven Johnson poses with, from left, juniors Abe Montes and Keita Allen , who were awarded for their work as Undergraduate Teaching Assistants for 18.02 and as exemplary tutors; and with sophomore Paige Dote, who was praised for developing the IAP Real Analysis "bridge" class.

Senior Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Quinn Brodsky (at left) for 18.03; and sophomore Undergraduate Assistant Yi (Eva) Xie for 18.600, pictured with Steven.

Congratulations to Abe, Keita, Paige, Quinn, and Eva!

• May 18: Ariana Park Receives Community Building Award

#### Ariana Park Receives Community Building Award

Junior Ariana Park received the Community Building Award for her work in developing the peer mentoring program.

Congratulations, Ariana!

• May 18: Seniors and PhD Candidates Awarded 2022 NSF Fellowships

#### Seniors and PhD Candidates Awarded 2022 NSF Fellowships

Congratulations to our students who have been awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships :

• Elisabeth Bullock
• Shardul Chiplunkar
• Robert Preston Cranford
• Swapnil Garg
• Brin Harper
• Alexandra Hoey
• Andrew R. Komo
• Andrew Y. Lin
• Alan E. Peng
• Dylan Pentland
• Kevin Ren
• Edwin Song
• Shobhita Sundaram
• David X. Wu
• Yuqing Xie

The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees.

Congratulations!

• May 16: Department to Host Virtual ICM 2022 Events June 13-14

#### Department to Host Virtual ICM 2022 Events June 13-14

With the International Congress of Mathematicians 2022 (ICM 2022) now a fully virtual event from July 6-14, 2022, the Department of Mathematics will host two afternoons of in-person presentations of ICM plenary and invited lectures by MIT and Harvard researchers, on June 13 and 14.

Professor Alexei Borodin is a moderator of the Satellite Coordination Group for in-person and online events created to complement the virtual ICM 2022. "I think it is very important for mathematicians to get back to face-to-face interactions after two years of the pandemic, and ICM satellites are perfect for that."

Speaking at this vICM day at MIT are faculty members from MIT and Harvard U.: ICM plenary speakers Larry Guth and Scott Sheffield, and invited speakers Semyon Dyatlov, Stefanie Jegelka, Elchanan Mossel, Scott Sheffield, Lauren Williams, and Melanie Matchett Wood.

"This mini-ICM should be very interesting and will cover a wide range of mathematics!" says Dept. Head Michel Goemans.

Meeting every four years, ICMs are the largest and most significant meetings of the mathematical community, aiming to showcase the most important recent advances across all subfields.

• May 16: Peter Shor Receives Killian Award

#### Peter Shor Receives Killian Award

Peter Shor PhD '85 has been named the recipient of MIT's 2022-2023 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award , the highest honor the Institute faculty can bestow upon one of its members each academic year.

The award citation credits Peter's "seminal contributions that have forever shaped the foundations of quantum computing. Indeed, quantum computing exists today, in practice, because of Peter Shor."

Only two other Math Dept. members have received this honor: Isadore Singer and Gian-Carlo Rota .

Congratulations, Peter!

• May 16: Roman Bezrukavnikov Elected to AAAS

#### Roman Bezrukavnikov Elected to AAAS

Professor Roman Bezrukavnikov has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He and six other MIT faculty members are among more than 250 leaders from academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research elected this year by the honorary society, which is also a leading center for independent policy research.

Congratulations, Roman!

• May 10: Steven Johnson Receives Teaching with Digital Technology Award

#### Steven Johnson Receives Teaching with Digital Technology Award

Professor Steven Johnson '95, PhD '01 is among 15 winners of the Teaching with Digital Technology Awards for using digital technology to enhance on-campus and remote teaching at MIT.

Steven was nominated by students for his class 18.369: Mathematical Methods in Nanophotonics, and how he used GitHub to organize and update the course materials.

Nominated by students, these awards are co-sponsored by MIT Open Learning and the Office of the Vice Chancellor .

Congratulations Steven!

• May 10: Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney Receive Johnson Prize

#### Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney Receive Johnson Prize

The 2022 Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize, for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal, has been awarded to graduate students Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney for their paper "Singularity of discrete random matrices," co-written with Vishesh Jain PhD '20, which has been published in Geometric and Functional Analysis .

Congratulations, Ashwin and Mehtaab!

• May 10: Julius Baldauf-Lenschen and Calder Morton-Ferguson Receive Housman Award

#### Julius Baldauf-Lenschen and Calder Morton-Ferguson Receive Housman Award

Graduate students Julius Baldauf-Lenschen and Calder Morton-Ferguson have received the 2022 Charles and Holly Housman Award for Excellence in Teaching, presented to graduate students in mathematics for their skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching.

Congratulations, Julius and Calder!

Adela Zhang has been awarded the 2022 Graduate Appreciation Fellowship, presented to a graduate woman entering her final year, in recognition of contributions to teaching and departmental service.

• May 10: MIT Mathematics Awards for Service to the Math Community

#### MIT Mathematics Awards for Service to the Math Community

Awards were presented recently to several MIT Mathematics members for their outstanding contributions to building and strengthening our mathematics community:

Graduate students Marisa Gaetz and Mary Stelow , for their work as co-directors of PRIMES Circle and for many additional mentoring and managing roles.

Postdocs Peter Baddoo and Charlotte Kirchhoff-Lukat , for their work in bringing together the postdoc community through the series of tea and coffee hours they have organized

Research scientists Edgar Costa and David Roe , for their behind-the-scenes efforts creating and maintaining researchseminars.org - a service not just to the MIT Math community but to mathematicians worldwide.

Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions!

• May 5: Celebrate International Women in Math Day with Two Films

• May 2: Memorial for Arthur Mattuck

#### Memorial for Arthur Mattuck

May 19, 2:00pm - 4:00pm, 2-190

• May 2: Dennis Porche Selected for School of Science Infinite Mile Award

#### Dennis Porche Selected for School of Science Infinite Mile Award

The School of Science has selected Dennis Porche, assistant to our department head, as one of seven staff members to receive the 2022 Infinite Mile Award .

Dennis is "amazingly dedicated to the well-being" of the department, write the nominators. "He will spend many hours making sure everything is perfect, nothing or no one is omitted, everyone is properly acknowledged, and everything goes smoothly."

Congratulations Dennis!

• April 13: Simons Lecture Series: Bhargav Bhatt April 27-29

#### Simons Lecture Series: Bhargav Bhatt April 27-29

University of Michigan Professor Bhargav Bhatt will give three lectures April 27-29, 2022, on p-adic Hodge Theory and Applications:

• April 27: What is p-adic Hodge theory?
• April 28: Applications to algebraic geometry
• April 29: Connections to algebraic topology

The lectures are 4:30-5:30 p.m. in 2-190, each preceded by a 4 p.m. reception in 2-290.

The Department of Mathematics annually hosts the Simons Lecture Series featuring presentations by top mathematicians. This is the first Simons Lecture Series since it was paused during 2020's pandemic shutdown.

Our next Simons Lecturer, Harvard Professor Cynthia Dwork , is scheduled for September 19, 20, and 22, 2022.

Many thanks to Jim and Marilyn Simons for their financial support of these lectures.

• April 13: MIT Math #1 by QS World and U.S News

• April 13: Bonnie Berger Receives SIAM Fellowship

#### Bonnie Berger Receives SIAM Fellowship

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) named Professor Bonnie Berger to the 2022 class of SIAM Fellows "for pioneering work in computational molecular biology, including comparative and compressive genomics, network inference, genomic privacy, and protein structure prediction."

The fellow designation honors SIAM members for their outstanding contributions to the fields of applied mathematics and computational science.

She is MIT's tenth recipient of this award. Others include Michael Artin, Tom Leighton, and Gil Strang (2009), Alan Edelman (2011), Michel Goemans (2013), Pablo Parrilo (2018), and Jeremy Kepner (2021).

Congratulations Bonnie!

• March 21: Yulia's Dream

#### Yulia's Dream

On March 20, 2022, PRIMES launched a new program in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yulia's Dream is a free math enrichment and research program for talented high school students (grades 9-11) from Ukraine.

For more information, see the Yulia's Dream Page , and NPR interview with Professor Pavel Etingof .

Yulia's Dream is dedicated to the memory of Yulia Zdanovskaya, a 21-year-old Ukrainian math student and a silver medalist at the 2017 European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad who was killed by a Russian-fired missile in her home city of Kharkiv. We hope to help other Ukrainian boys and girls fulfill her dream.

• March 1: MIT Takes All of the Top Honors in 82nd Putnam Exam

#### MIT Takes All of the Top Honors in 82nd Putnam Exam

For the second time in Putnam history, all five of the top scorers, designated as Putnam Fellows in the 82nd William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition , came from a single school — MIT. Putnam Fellows, in alphabetical order, are seniors Andrew Gu and Michael Ren, sophomore Edward Wan, senior Shengtong Zhang, and junior Daniel G. Zhu.

The 2021 Putnam team, listed in alphabetical order, are Wan, Zhang, and Zhu. This is the MIT team's sixth first-place win in the past eight competitions. Zhang was also a Putnam Fellow in 2018 and 2019, and Zhu was also a 2019 Putnam Fellow.

Junior Dain Kim, who finished in the top 15, received the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize. She was also recognized by our department as a top female scorer in the 2019 contest.

MIT also took 9 of the next 10 spots, 9 of the next 12, and 40 of the 78 honorable mentions. Among the top 105 test-takers overall, 63 were MIT students.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's exam!

A full list of the winners can be found on the Putnam website .

• February 16: Lisa Sauermann Receives Sloan Research Fellowship

#### Lisa Sauermann Receives Sloan Research Fellowship

Lisa Sauermann , who recently joined our faculty in 2021, was awarded a 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship . She is among seven new MIT Sloan Fellows this year.

Altogether, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation selected 118 U.S. and Canadian early-career scholars for the two-year, $75,000 fellowship to further their research program. Sloan Fellowships were also awarded to 19 other mathematicians, including Jonathan Niles-Weed PhD ’19 under the supervision of Philippe Rigollet , and now of New York University; former CLE Moore Instructor Charlotte Chan, currently at the University of Michigan; and former instructor and PRIMES mentor Asaf Ferber, now at University of California, Irvine. Congratulations everyone! • February 16: CLE Moore Instructor Ziquan Zhuang Receives Clay Research Fellowship #### CLE Moore Instructor Ziquan Zhuang Receives Clay Research Fellowship Ziquan Zhuang has been awarded a 2022 Clay Research Fellowship , for a term of two years. Ziquan, an algebraic geometer, is one of three selected for their research achievements and their potential to become leaders in mathematics. Congratulations Ziquan! • February 14: George Lusztig Receives Wolf Prize #### George Lusztig Receives Wolf Prize George Lusztig , the Abdun-Nur Professor of Mathematics, has been awarded the prestigious 2022 Wolf Prize in Mathematics "for groundbreaking contributions to representation theory and related areas." George is the Department's second Wolf Prize in Mathematics Laureate. Emeritus Professor Michael Artin received the Wolf Prize in 2013. Congratulations George! • February 1: Lisa Sauermann and Yufei Zhao Receive the Edmund F. Kelly Award #### Lisa Sauermann and Yufei Zhao Receive the Edmund F. Kelly Award The Edmund F. Kelly Research Award has been awarded to Assistant Professors Lisa Sauermann and Yufei Zhao . Periodically, our department gives this award to one or several junior faculty members "in recognition of work that applies mathematical methods in a new area or that offers a fundamentally new perspective on a classical problem." This award was established in honor of former Liberty Mutual CEO and President Edmund "Ted" Kelly, who received his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Sigurdur Helgason in 1970. Congratulations Lisa and Yufei! • January 18: David Darrow Named Churchill Scholar #### 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 . Congratulations David! ### 2021 • December 20: Richard Stanley Receives AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement #### 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! • December 20: Michel Goemans Receives AMS Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research #### 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! • December 20: Graduate Students Receive Lusztig and Bershadsky PRIMES Mentorships #### Graduate Students Receive Lusztig and Bershadsky PRIMES Mentorships 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! • December 3: First-year PhD Students Travis Dillon and Alex Cohen Receive Morgan Prize Honors #### 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. Congratulations Travis and Alex! • November 22: Semyon Dyatlov Awarded Mikhail Gordin Prize #### 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! • November 22: Lisa Sauermann Awarded European Prize in Combinatorics #### Lisa Sauermann Awarded European Prize in Combinatorics Lisa Sauermann , who recently joined our department as assistant professor, has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2021 European Prize in Combinatorics , which was awarded at Eurocomb in September. The prize is for research in combinatorics and is awarded every two years. She was cited for her "profound contribution to combinatorics, particularly for results on the growth rate of algebraically defined classes, for the solution of an old Erdös, Faudree, Rousseau, and Schelp and for the solution of edge-statistics conjecture." Congratulations Lisa! • November 18: Carina Hong and Alexandra Hoey Receive 2022 Alice T. Schafer Honors #### Carina Hong and Alexandra Hoey Receive 2022 Alice T. Schafer Honors The Association for Women in Mathematics announced that Letong "Carina" Hong , a math and physics double major, won the 2022 Alice T. Schafer Mathematics Prize for excellence in mathematics by an undergraduate woman. In addition, Mathematics major Alexandra Hoey was awarded honorable mention. Carina participated in REUs at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and the University of Virginia that led to a number of papers, including three accepted for publication. She also participated in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics and the IAS Women and Mathematics program. Carina was recently selected for a Rhodes Scholarship . Carina also serves as President of MIT's Undergraduate Mathematics Association (UMA). Alexandra participated in the MIT Summer Program in Undergraduate Research and spent two summers at the University of Virginia REU, focusing on arithmetic statistics. Her work has led to two papers – one of which will appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. She has also served as a PRIMES Circle mentor. The Schafer Prize Winners will be presented at the January 2022 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle. Congratulations Carina and Alexandra! • November 1: Peter Shor Is Named 2022 AMS Fellow #### Peter Shor Is Named 2022 AMS Fellow Peter Shor was among 45 mathematical scientists selected for the 2022 Class of American Mathematical Society Fellows . He was recognized for “contributions to quantum computing, in particular quantum algorithms and quantum information theory.” The AMS Fellows program recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. Congratulations Peter! • October 6: Four PRIMES/RSI Students Receive Davidson Honors #### Four PRIMES/RSI Students Receive Davidson Honors PRIMES student Sean Li won the$10,000 Davidson Fellowship for his project "On Group-Theoretic Extensions of Penney's Game," mentored by Tanya Khovanova, who he says "provided high-level insight and gave myriads of advice on exposition." Sean is attending MIT as a prospective math major.

Honorable mentions went to PRIMES students Espen Slettnes and Kenta Suzuki (now an MIT student). RSI student Andrei Mandelstam also received an honorable mention. Of the six math projects receiving Davidson honors this year, four were completed in our PRIMES or RSI programs.

Congratulations and thanks to Pavel Etingof , Slava Gerovitch , David Jerison , Tanya Khovanova , and Ankur Moitra for running PRIMES and RSI, and to the PRIMES/RSI mentors: our PhDs Jesse Geneson and Daniil Kalinov, and Prof. Michael Zieve of the University of Michigan!

The International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Centre de Recherches Mathematiques, University of Montreal, recently announced that Tristan Collins is the recipient of the 2021 André Aisenstadt Prize in Mathematics .

This prize, awarded to a young outstanding Canadian mathematician, will also be given to Giulio Tiozzo, who is at the University of Toronto.

Tristan will virtually present "Exploring string vacua through geometric transitions" at a CRM colloquium on Nov. 19, 2021.

Congratulations Tristan!

• September 13: Instructor Yilin Wang and Hong Wang PhD '19 Awarded 2022 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in Mathematics

#### Instructor Yilin Wang and Hong Wang PhD '19 Awarded 2022 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in Mathematics

CLE Moore Instructor Yilin Wang and Hong Wang PhD ’19, a UCLA assistant professor of mathematics, are recipients of the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize, awarded to outstanding early-career women in mathematics by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation .

Yilin is cited "for innovative and far-reaching work on the Loewner energy of planar curves" according to the award citation, and Hong "for advances on the restriction conjecture, the local smoothing conjecture, and related problems."

"Once again, it is uplifting to see women in mathematics receiving a major prize for their outstanding research," says Department of Mathematics Head Michel Goemans , the RSA Professor of Mathematics. "We are proud of Yilin's achievements in probability and Hong’s contributions to Fourier analysis."

Congratulations Yilin and Hong!

• August 18: SPUR Teams Share Rogers Prize

#### SPUR Teams Share Rogers Prize

SPUR/SPUR+ (Summer Program in Undergraduate Research) wrapped up this year’s program with two teams sharing the 2021 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper .

Students Dain Kim and Anqi Li’s paper "Cubic Goldreich-Levin," suggested by their mentor and SPUR ’16 and PRIMES ’13 alum Jonathan Tidor , “makes a substantial contribution to a challenging area of algorithms and combinatorics,” stated the judges.

Daishi Kiyohara’s project, "A new approach to the upper estimate of lattice points on a curve via 𝓁2 decoupling," was suggested by Larry Guth and mentored by Feng Gui . “This project introduces exciting new techniques and ideas from Fourier decoupling theory to count lattice points on curves satisfying certain algebraic non-degeneracy conditions,” said the judges.

Twelve MIT undergraduates presented six individual and three joint research projects at the Aug. 6, 2021 online SPUR Conference to judges Tristan Collins , Davesh Maulik , and Michael Sipser .

This summer’s Aug. 5 RSI (Research Science Institute) Symposium also saw 11 outstanding high school students from the U.S., Bulgaria, China, Hong Kong, and Kazakhstan present online their math research projects, mentored by graduate students from our department.

The SPUR/SPUR+ and RSI math programs were run by faculty advisors David Jerison and Ankur Moitra , program director Slava Gerovitch , and RSI head mentor Tanya Khovanova .

• July 19: Michel Goemans Awarded Dantzig Prize

#### Michel Goemans Awarded Dantzig Prize

Michel Goemans received the George B. Dantzig Prize , recognizing Michel’s "outstanding contributions to the field of combinatorial optimization; most notably, the initiation of new research directions, introduction of novel and deep techniques, and ingenious use of sampling, rounding, and geometric ideas to significantly advance several fields, including the pioneering use of semi-definite programming for the design of approximation algorithms."

The George B. Dantzig Prize is awarded every three years by the Mathematical Optimization Society (MOS) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

Michel was also named RSA Professor of Mathematics. The RSA public key encryption technology was invented at MIT by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman, who were on the faculty in Mathematics (for Len and Adi) and in EECS (for Ron).

Congratulations Michel!

• July 19: Allen Liu Awarded Hertz Fellowship

#### Allen Liu Awarded Hertz Fellowship

Mathematics alumnus Allen Liu ’20, now a first-year graduate student at EECS, was among 12 doctoral candidates to receive the prestigious Hertz Fellowship .

Allen is developing algorithms with provable guarantees for a variety of fundamental learning problems in preference learning, robust statistics, and other areas. Under Ankur Moitra , Liu developed an efficient algorithm that provably learns the parameters of a mixture of Gaussians from samples, even amid adversarial noise.

Congratulations Allen!

• July 19: Ankur Moitra Appointed Norbert Wiener Professor

#### Ankur Moitra Appointed Norbert Wiener Professor

Ankur Moitra has been promoted to full professor, and now holds the Norbert Wiener Professorship in Mathematics. Norbert Wiener, the father of cynernetics, was on the faculty in the Department from 1926 until his retirement in 1960 as Institute Professor Emeritus.

Ankur has also started in his new role as Director of the MIT Statistics and Data Science Center (SDSC) .

Congratulations Ankur!

• July 19: Philippe Rigollet Named Fellow of IMS

#### Philippe Rigollet Named Fellow of IMS

Philippe Rigollet was named a fellow of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics . He was recognized for "outstanding contributions to the analysis of statistical versus computational trade-offs, to the theory of aggregation, and to statistical optimal transport."

Congratulations Philippe!

• June 2: Three Math Majors Named 2021 Burchard Scholars

#### Three Math Majors Named 2021 Burchard Scholars

Sophomore Ryan Conti and juniors Swapnil Garg and Jeffery Yu are among 38 MIT students named 2021 Burchard Scholars by the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS). The Burchard Scholars program recognizes sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated outstanding abilities and academic excellence in the humanities, arts, and social sciences as well as in STEM fields.

Congratulations Ryan, Swapnil, and Jeffery!

• May 28: Phi Beta Kappa Inducts 58 Mathematics Seniors

#### Phi Beta Kappa Inducts 58 Mathematics Seniors

The Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected 58 mathematics majors, among 148 electees from MIT’s Class of 2021, to become members. Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest academic honor society with a very selective invitation process. Membership is awarded to students in recognition of excellent academic records and commitment to the objectives of a liberal education.

Congratulations to our newest members of Phi Beta Kappa!

• May 28: Congratulations to our 2021 PhDs!

#### Congratulations to our 2021 PhDs!

Congratulations to our 26 doctoral candidates receiving their PhDs this year!

• May 28: Korina Digalaki and Vanshika Jain Receive Honorable Mentions for 2021 Alice T. Schafer Prize

#### Korina Digalaki and Vanshika Jain Receive Honorable Mentions for 2021 Alice T. Schafer Prize

Math seniors Korina Digalaki and Vanshika Jain won Honorable Mentions for the 2021 Alice T. Schafer Prize for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics, by the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Congratulations Korina and Vanshika!

• May 28: Qiuyu Ren and Junyao Peng Each Receive Bucsela Prize

#### Qiuyu Ren and Junyao Peng Each Receive Bucsela Prize

Seniors Qiuyu Ren and Junyao Peng each received the 2021 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics.

Congratulations Qiuyu and Junyao!

• May 28: Jonathan Tidor Receives Johnson Prize

#### Jonathan Tidor Receives Johnson Prize

The 2021 Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal, went to Jonathan Tidor , a fourth-year doctoral candidate. His paper, "Testing linear-invariant properties" (jointly with Professor Yufei Zhao ), has been published in Foundations of Computer Science .

Congratulations Jonathan!

• May 28: Andrei Ionov Receives Housman Award

#### Andrei Ionov Receives Housman Award

Graduate student Andrei Ionov has been awarded the 2021 Charles and Holly Housman Award for excellence in teaching. This award is presented to graduate students in mathematics for skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching.

Congratulations Andrei!

Graduate student Ruoxuan Yang has been awarded the 2021 Graduate Appreciation Fellowship. This is presented to graduate women entering their final year, in recognition of contributions to teaching and departmental service.

Congratulations Ruoxuan!

• May 28: Teaching and Learning Awards

#### Teaching and Learning Awards

Seniors Jack-William Barotta , Andrew Lin , and Nelson Niu , and CLE Moore Instructors Junho Whang and Pei-Ken Hung , were recognized by the Department with Teaching and Learning Awards. This is presented in recognition of contributions to teaching.

Also recognized for their outstanding contributions to teaching were Josh Amaniampong , Yongyi Chen , Murilo Curato Zanarella , Felix Gotti , Katie Gravel , Brin Harper , Xzavier Herbert , Sujay Kazi , Daniel Kriz , Jeffery Li , Rene Reyes , Nika Silkin , Shengtong Zhang , and the “Proofs-IAP Workshop” team .

• May 28: Students Awarded for Community Building

#### Students Awarded for Community Building

Undergraduates Talia Blum , Katie Gravel , and Letong "Carina" Hong , and graduate students Peter Haine and Chengzhao "Richard" Zhang received Community Building Awards "for individuals who have made significant contributions to building and strengthening our MIT Mathematics community."

Honorable mention goes to Andrea Arias , Jack-William Barotta , Kevin Chang , Brin Harper , Xzavier Herbert , Andrew Lin , Rachana Madhukara , Nelson Niu , Ana Reyes Sanchez , Boya Song , and Rona Wang .

Congratulations Talia, Katie, Carina, Peter, and Richard!

• May 28: Students Recognized by 2021 MIT Awards Convocation

#### Students Recognized by 2021 MIT Awards Convocation

Kevin Costello ’21 received the Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Award, for outstanding achievement in and contributions to the arts at MIT.

Marisa Gaetz ’G received the Priscilla King Gray Award for Public Service, which recognizes exceptional dedication to community engagement and making positive social and environmental changes at MIT and beyond.

Letong "Carina" Hong ’23 received the Emerging Leader Award in recognition of significant contributions to the community and demonstrated potential for leadership and continuing service.

Miles Johnson ’21 received the Ronald E. McNair Scholarship, established in Dr. McNair’s honor by the Black Alumni/ae of MIT, to recognize a Black undergraduate who has demonstrated strong academic performance and who has made a considerable contribution to the minority community.

Anjali Nambrath ’21 received the Laya W. Wiesner Award as an undergraduate woman student who has most enhanced MIT community life.

Congratulations Kevin, Marisa, Miles, Carina, and Anjali!

• April 28: Daniel Freedman, Larry Guth, and Gigliola Staffilani Are Elected to National Academy of Sciences

#### Daniel Freedman, Larry Guth, and Gigliola Staffilani Are Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Professor emeritus Daniel Freedman and Professors Larry Guth and Gigliola Staffilani have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences .

Members are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Membership is one of the highest honors that a scientist can achieve. They join 15 other NAS members in our department.

Congratulations Dan, Larry, and Gigliola!

• April 28: Scott Sheffield Named American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow

#### Scott Sheffield Named American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow

Professor Scott Sheffield has been elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . As described by AAAS, "The election of new Academy members in 2021 provides an opportunity to recognize extraordinary people who help solve the world’s most urgent challenges, create meaning through art, and contribute to the common good from every field, discipline, and profession."

Congratulations Scott!

• April 28: Haynes Miller Receives Lazarus Award for Excellence In Advising

Professor Haynes Miller has been awarded the 2021 Alan J. Lazarus (1953) Excellence in Advising by the Office of the First Year . The award is "presented to a faculty member who has served as an excellent advisor and mentor to first-year students and who has had a significant impact on their personal lives and academic success."

The presentation will be at a virtual ceremony for award recipients (advisors, first-years and associate advisors) on May 13.

Congratulations Haynes!

• April 28: Jerry Orloff Receives Teaching with Digital Technology Award

#### Jerry Orloff Receives Teaching with Digital Technology Award

Lecturer Jerry Orloff PhD ’85 received the 2021 Teaching with Digital Technology Award for enhancing on-campus and remote teaching. The awards are student-nominated and co-sponsored by MIT Open Learning and the Office of the Vice Chancellor .

Jerry teaches 18.05 , is a lecturer at Experimental Study Group for versions of 18.01A, 02A and 03, and serves on our Education Committee. Professor Haynes Miller also commented on his "invaluable contributions to the MIT Mathlet project ."

Congratulations Jerry!

• April 28: John Bush and Martin Bazant Develop Covid-19 Risk Guidelines

#### John Bush and Martin Bazant Develop Covid-19 Risk Guidelines

Professors John Bush and Martin Bazant’s paper “Beyond Six Feet: A Guideline to Limit Indoor Airborne Transmission of COVID-19” was published in PNAS .

By considering the fluid mechanics of indoor spaces, they developed a new safety guideline for limiting airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors. Their mathematical model yields a time limit for a given indoor space that depends on the ventilation rate, mask use and number of occupants. Their study underscores the inadequacy of the 6-Foot Rule in protecting against airborne transmission.

Their work has prompted the development of an app that calculates safe exposure times and occupancy levels for indoor spaces , and Martin’s MOOC on the physics of Covid-19 transmission .

• April 13: Fiona Chen and Ashwin Sah Named Paul and Daisy Soros Fellows

#### Fiona Chen and Ashwin Sah Named Paul and Daisy Soros Fellows

Math majors Fiona Chen ’21 and Ashwin Sah ’20 are among this year’s recipients of the 2021 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans , in support of graduate study. Fiona will use her fellowship to pursue a PhD in economics at Harvard, and Ashwin to continue his graduate studies in mathematics here at MIT.

Congratulations Fiona and Ashwin!

• March 29: Yufei Zhao Receives NSF CAREER Award

#### Yufei Zhao Receives NSF CAREER Award

Assistant Professor Yufei Zhao will be awarded support by the NSF's Faculty Early Career Development Program, for his project "Analytic and Spectral Methods in Combinatorics."

Congratulations Yufei!

• March 23: PRIMES and RSI Students Win Big at Regeneron

#### PRIMES and RSI Students Win Big at Regeneron

A record number of PRIMES students — 17! — were awarded in the 2021 Regeneron Science Talent Search Competition .

Yunseo Choi, who is also an RSI alum, took first place ($250,000), and Gopal Goel earned 4th place ($100,000). Three PRIMES alums, along with another RSI student, were finalists, and 12 PRIMES students received national scholar awards.

Congratulations to our PRIMES and RSI students, and thanks to faculty advisors Pavel Etingof , David Jerison , and Ankur Moitra , program director Slava Gerovitch , head mentor Tanya Khovanova , and the mentors for inspiring our students to succeed!

• March 11: Larry Guth named 2021 MacVicar Faculty Fellow

#### Larry Guth named 2021 MacVicar Faculty Fellow

Congratulations to Larry Guth , who receives MIT's highest honor in undergraduate teaching, the Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellowship .

The 10-year fellowship is awarded by the Office of the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar’s Office to recognize faculty, who have made exemplary and sustained contributions to the teaching and education of undergraduates at MIT.

Past Department MacVicar Fellows include David Jerison , Haynes Miller , Arthur Mattuck , and Michael Sipser .

Congratulations Larry!

• February 18: Dor Minzer and Lisa Piccirillo Receive Sloan Fellowship

#### Dor Minzer and Lisa Piccirillo Receive Sloan Fellowship

Dor Minzer and Lisa Piccirillo have been awarded 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships . Dor and Lisa, who recently joined our department as assistant professors, are among eight MIT researchers awarded.

The Sloan Foundation awarded these fellowships to 128 U.S. and Canadian researchers, who will each receive $75,000 to be spent over a two-year term on any expense supportive of their research. Congratulations Dor and Lisa! • February 18: George Lusztig Receives Simons Fellowship #### George Lusztig Receives Simons Fellowship Professor George Lusztig was awarded a 2021 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics. Outstanding mathematicians recognized by the Simons Fellows program are able to extend sabbatical leaves from one term to a full year, enabling recipients to focus solely on research for the long periods often necessary for significant advances. Congratulations George! • February 9: PRIMES and Marisa Gaetz Receive MLK Jr. Leadership Award #### PRIMES and Marisa Gaetz Receive MLK Jr. Leadership Award The 2021 MIT Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award recognizes the PRIMES program and Marisa Gaetz '20, now a doctoral candidate, at the 47th Annual MLK Jr. Celebration on February 10, 2021. PRIMES is recognized "for deep and coordinated commitment to improving diversity in mathematics." Marisa is recognized for her efforts to improve diversity and inclusivity within the math community, including as a PRIMES Circle mentor , and for her work with The Educational Justice Institute (TEJI) at MIT. Congratulations to Marisa and to PRIMES leaders Pavel Etingof , Slava Gerovitch , and Tanya Khovanova ! • January 29: Lisa Piccirillo and Postdocs Maggie Miller and Alex Smith Named 2021 Clay Research Fellows #### Lisa Piccirillo and Postdocs Maggie Miller and Alex Smith Named 2021 Clay Research Fellows Lisa Piccirillo and postdocs Maggie Miller and Alex Smith have been awarded 2021 Clay Research Fellowships . Lisa, who recently joined our department as assistant professor, was recognized for her work in low-dimensional topology, and in particular her surprising resolution of the 50-year-old Conway Knot problem . Maggie, an NSF postdoctoral fellow at MIT, has also made important contributions to long standing problems in low-dimensional topology. Smith, also an NSF postdoc, has made deep contributions to the theory of elliptic curves and class groups. Both will be moving on to Stanford this summer. These fellowships, which begin on July 1, 2021, go to recent PhDs who are potential leaders in research mathematics. Congratulations Lisa, Maggie and Alex! • January 14: Alan Edelman Elected ACM Fellow #### Alan Edelman Elected ACM Fellow Alan Edelman PhD ’89 was among three MIT faculty named Association for Computer Machinery 2020 Fellows . He was cited “for contributions to algorithms and languages for numerical and scientific computing.” Alan does research on high-performance computing, numerical computation, linear algebra, random matrix theory, and scientific machine learning. He leads the MIT Julia Lab and is chief scientist at Julia Computing . He is also a fellow of SIAM, AMS, and IEEE. Congratulations Alan! ### 2020 • December 18: Four Graduate Students Receive Lusztig and Bershadsky PRIMES Mentorships #### Four Graduate Students Receive Lusztig and Bershadsky PRIMES Mentorships Four graduate students received the 2021 named PRIMES mentorships for exceptional mentor service. Three received the 2021 George Lusztig Mentorships. Peter Haine is a DRP and MathROOTS mentor, and a PRIMES Circle program coordinator since 2018. Chun Hong Lo , who is a PRIMES, RSI, UROP+ and SPUR mentor, saw three PRIMES mentees become 2019 Yau Science Award USA semifinalists. Adela (YiYu) Zhang is a PRIMES, RSI, UROP+, MathROOTS, and PRIMES Circle mentor. The new Bershadsky Mentor Award, courtesy of Michael and Victoria Bershadsky, goes to Andrey Khesin , a PRIMES mentor and MathROOTS program director. Congratulations Peter, Chun, Adela, and Andrey, and thank you Professor Lusztig, and Michael and Victoria Bershadsky for making these mentorships possible! • November 6: Andrew Sutherland Is Named 2021 AMS Fellow #### Andrew Sutherland Is Named 2021 AMS Fellow Andrew Sutherland was among 46 mathematical scientists selected for the 2021 Class of American Mathematical Society Fellows . He was recognized for "contributions to number theory, both on the theoretical and computational aspects of the subject." Congratulations Drew! • October 30: Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney Receive 2021 Morgan Prize #### Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney Receive 2021 Morgan Prize Graduate students Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney will receive the 2021 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student, for their work as MIT undergraduates. Previously, they received Honorable Mention for the Morgan Prize for their joint work with David Stoner. The award recognizes their innovative results across a broad range of topics in combinatorics, discrete geometry, and probability. Congratulations Ashwin and Mehtaab! • September 15: Lisa Piccirillo Awarded 2021 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in Mathematics #### Lisa Piccirillo Awarded 2021 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in Mathematics Assistant Professor Lisa Piccirillo was selected for an inaugural 2021 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize , created in 2019 by the Breakthrough Foundation to recognize outstanding early-career women in mathematics. Lisa is cited for “resolving the classic problem that the Conway knot is not smoothly slice.” She was also recently named one of this year's WIRED25 for "People Who Are Making Things Better." “I can’t wait to see what comes next from these brilliant young women,” said School of Science Dean Nergis Mavalvala, congratulating Lisa Piccirillo, fellow New Frontiers prizewinner and 2018 Math PhD alum Nina Holden, and two women faculty physicists, each selected for the Breakthrough's New Horizons Prize in Physics. Congratulations Lisa! • July 29: Semyon Dyatlov, Pei-Ken Hung, and Jonathan Kelner Receive Teaching with Digital Technology Awards #### Semyon Dyatlov, Pei-Ken Hung, and Jonathan Kelner Receive Teaching with Digital Technology Awards Professors Semyon Dyatlov and Jonathan Kelner and CLE Moore Instructor Pei-Ken Hung each received the 2020 Teaching with Digital Technology Award for enhancing on-campus and remote teaching. "They worked very hard to improve teaching and learning for MIT students in this digital era, and they also helped the rest of the department get up to speed," says Department Head Michel Goemans . The awards are student-nominated and co-sponsored by MIT Open Learning and the Office of the Vice Chancellor . Congratulations Semyon, Pei-Ken, and Jon! • July 15: Elchanan Mossel Named 2020 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow #### Elchanan Mossel Named 2020 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow Elchanan Mossel has been selected by the Department of Defense for a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship for his research on information flows on networks. He is among eight distinguished faculty scientists and engineers who will be provided fellowship funds "to advance transformative, university-based fundamental research." Congratulations Elchanan! • July 1: Gigliola Staffilani Honored with Commitment to Caring Award #### Gigliola Staffilani Honored with Commitment to Caring Award Gigliola Staffilani was honored with the Committed to Caring (C2C) award by the Office of Graduate Education. The C2C program recognizes outstanding mentors and promotes thoughtful, engaged mentorship throughout the Institute. “Her students spoke glowingly of her caring action and the positive impact she has made on graduate student lives,” says Department Head Michel Goemans. Gigliola was one of 12 outstanding advisors and mentors at MIT to receive the biennial C2C award. Congratulations Gigliola! • July 1: Alexei Borodin and Zhiwei Yun Named Simons Investigators #### Alexei Borodin and Zhiwei Yun Named Simons Investigators Alexei Borodin and Zhiwei Yun were each selected to receive a 2020 Simons Investigator award in Mathematics. This program "supports outstanding theoretical scientists in their most productive years, when they are establishing creative new research directions, providing leadership to the field and effectively mentoring junior scientists." They are among 15 of the 2020 Simons Investigators in Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics, and Computer Science. Alexei and Zhiwei join their fellow Simons Investigators Larry Guth, Elchanan Mossel, Bjorn Poonen, and Paul Seidel. Congratulations Alexei and Zhiwei! • June 18: Yufei Zhao Receives MIT's UROP Outstanding Mentor Award #### Yufei Zhao Receives MIT's UROP Outstanding Mentor Award Yufei Zhao received this year’s UROP Outstanding Mentor Award , presented to research mentors who have demonstrated exceptional guidance and teaching in a research setting. Yufei's undergraduate mentees have already produced numerous high-quality results and published in prestigious venues. Beyond their research projects, Yufei offers guidance on their decision making, and personally assists in finding summer internships. Students wrote that Yufei "made research mathematics less intimidating to us and truly sparked our interests in combinatorics." "Professor Zhao is invested in our success." Congratulations Yufei! • June 4: Gilbert Strang Receives Irwin Sizer Award #### Gilbert Strang Receives Irwin Sizer Award This year’s Irwin Sizer Award for the Most Significant Improvement to MIT Education was presented to Gilbert Strang by the Graduate Student Council. Gil was recognized for “his ability to make mathematics alive, accessible, and interesting.” His classes and texts on Linear Algebra , Matrix Methods In Data Analysis, Signal Processing, and Machine Learning , and Highlights of Calculus have inspired MIT undergrads and PhD students, as well as millions via his YouTube and OCW lectures. His newest textbook, "Linear Algebra for Everyone," is coming out later this year. Congratulations Gil! • June 4: Ju-Lee Kim Receives MIT's Earll M. Murman Award #### Ju-Lee Kim Receives MIT's Earll M. Murman Award Ju-Lee Kim is this year’s recipient of the Earll M. Murman Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising , "presented to a faculty member who has served as an excellent advisor and mentor for undergraduates and who has had a significant impact on their personal lives and academic success." Ju-Lee is also recognized for expanding her services as Major Advisor Co-Chair to make the Math Major more inclusive and supportive. Congratulations Ju-Lee! • May 29: Phi Beta Kappa Inducts 39 Mathematics Seniors #### Phi Beta Kappa Inducts 39 Mathematics Seniors The Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected 39 mathematics majors, among 117 electees from MIT’s Class of 2020, to become members. Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest academic honor society with a very selective invitation process. Membership is awarded to students in recognition of excellent academic records and commitment to the objectives of a liberal education. Congratulations to our newest members of Phi Beta Kappa! • May 29: 10 Seniors and Two PhD Candidates Awarded NSF Fellowships #### 10 Seniors and Two PhD Candidates Awarded NSF Fellowships Twelve of our students have been awarded 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. Undergraduates: • Marisa Gaetz • Michael Kural • Allen Liu • Ashwin Sah • Roshni Sahoo • Maya Sankar • Mehtaab Sawhney • Douglas Stryker • Sarah Wu • Michelle Xu Graduate Students: The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees. Congratulations! • May 29: Marisa Gaetz, Timothy Leplae-Arthur, and Sam Turton Recognized by 2020 MIT Awards Convocation #### Marisa Gaetz, Timothy Leplae-Arthur, and Sam Turton Recognized by 2020 MIT Awards Convocation Marisa Gaetz ‘20 received the William L. Stewart, Jr. Award , given in recognition of outstanding contributions by an individual student or student organization to extracurricular activities and events. Timothy Leplae-Arthur ‘20 received the Ronald E. McNair Scholarship, established in Dr. McNair’s honor by the Black Alumni/ae of MIT, to recognize a Black undergraduate who has demonstrated strong academic performance and who has made a considerable contribution to the minority community. Sam Turton PhD ’20 received the John S.W. Kellett '47 Award, in recognition of an MIT individual or group for an exceptional and/or sustained commitment to creating a more welcoming environment at MIT, including but not limited to, improving the experience of lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender (LBGT), and questioning individuals. Congratulations Marisa, Timothy, and Sam! • May 28: Congratulations to our 2020 PhDs! #### Congratulations to our 2020 PhDs! Congratulations to our 26 doctoral candidates receiving their PhDs this spring! • May 27: Andrew Ahn Receives Johnson Prize • May 27: Oscar Mickelin and Chengzhao (Richard) Zhang Receive Housman Awards #### Oscar Mickelin and Chengzhao (Richard) Zhang Receive Housman Awards Graduate students Oscar Mickelin and Richard Zhang have each been awarded the 2020 Charles and Holly Housman Award for excellence in teaching. This award is presented to graduate students in mathematics for skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching. Congratulations Oscar and Richard! • May 26: Mehtaab Sawhney Named Churchill Scholar #### Mehtaab Sawhney Named Churchill Scholar MIT math senior Mehtaab Sawhney received a prestigious Churchill Scholarship to pursue graduate studies at Cambridge University. This scholarship is awarded to individuals with exceptional academic talent and outstanding achievement. Congratulations Mehtaab! • May 21: Sanath Devalapurkar Named Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow #### Sanath Devalapurkar Named Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow Sanath Devalapurkar ‘20 is among this year’s recipients of the 2020 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, in support of graduate study. He will use his fellowship to support his doctoral studies in mathematics at Harvard University. Congratulations Sanath! • May 21: Marisa Gaetz Won Honorable Mention — 2020 Alice T. Schafer Prize #### Marisa Gaetz Won Honorable Mention — 2020 Alice T. Schafer Prize Math major Marisa Gaetz won Honorable Mention for the 2020 Alice T. Schafer Prize for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics, by the Association for Women in Mathematics. Congratulations Marisa! • May 21: Marisa Gaetz and Maya Sankar Named 2020 Hertz Fellows #### Marisa Gaetz and Maya Sankar Named 2020 Hertz Fellows Seniors Marisa Gaetz and Maya Sankar were among 16 to receive the Hertz Fellowship. The Hertz Fellowship is awarded annually to graduate students in science and technology who demonstrate the greatest potential to tackle the most urgent problems facing society. Congratulations Marisa and Maya! • May 21: Three Math Majors Named 2020 Burchard Scholars #### Three Math Majors Named 2020 Burchard Scholars Ifeoluwapo Ademolu-Odeneye , Kevin Costello , and Edwin Song are among 38 MIT sophomore and junior students named 2020 Burchard Scholars by the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS). The Burchard Scholars program recognizes sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated outstanding abilities and academic excellence in the humanities, arts, and social sciences as well as in STEM fields. Congratulations Ifeoluwapo, Kevin, and Edwin! • May 21: Anlong Chua and Douglas Stryker Each Receives the Jon A. Bucsela Prize #### Anlong Chua and Douglas Stryker Each Receives the Jon A. Bucsela Prize Anlong Chua and Douglas Stryker each received the 2020 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics. Congratulations Anlong and Douglas! • May 13: Casey Rodriguez Selected for the School of Science Infinite Kilometer Award #### Casey Rodriguez Selected for the School of Science Infinite Kilometer Award CLE Moore Instructor and NSF Postdoc Fellow Casey Rodriguez was selected for the 2020 Infinite Kilometer Award , recognizing postdocs and research staff for exceptional contributions to their research program and to the community. Casey is described as an outstanding junior colleague: an "inspiring teacher and role model for many math majors," a community builder for fellow postdocs, and one fully engaged in the department's diversity mission. One student described Casey as a master of class participation. "Casey doesn't simply teach mathematics, he preaches it, infecting his students with his love of math." Congratulations Casey! • May 13: Edgar Costa Received the School of Science Infinite Kilometer Award #### Edgar Costa Received the School of Science Infinite Kilometer Award Dr. Edgar Costa , a research scientist in the Simons Collaboration on Arithmetic Geometry, Number Theory, and Computation, received the 2020 Infinite Kilometer Award : for his excellent mentorship of UROP projects and math majors, development of the Bean Theory website (to track the multiple seminars and special events for number theorists in the Boston community), and for hosting the weekly coding jam , open to anyone wanting to contribute to the L-functions and Modular Forms Database (LMFDB) related to the Langlands Program. These outside commitments befit the Infinite Kilometer's recognition of a research staff member contributing "to their local and global MIT community." Congratulations Edgar! • May 9: Slava Gerovitch Selected for School of Science Infinite Mile Award #### Slava Gerovitch Selected for School of Science Infinite Mile Award History of Science and Math Lecturer Slava Gerovitch received the Infinite Mile Staff Award for his exemplary service as Director and Administrator of the Department's Research and Reading Programs for Undergraduates and High School Students. He co-founded the PRIMES program , helped to establish EECS PRIMES, and co-created five additional PRIMES math sections — all to serve diverse groups and provide for unique instruction arrangements. As Pavel Etingof describes, Slava has made PRIMES "a powerful recruiting tool for MIT" and "a major part of the diversity effort of the Math Department and the School of Science." Congratulations Slava! • May 8: Bonnie Berger Is Elected Member of National Academy of Sciences #### Bonnie Berger Is Elected Member of National Academy of Sciences Bonnie Berger has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Members are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Membership is one of the highest honors that a scientist can achieve. Congratulations Bonnie! • May 8: PRIMES Recognized in 2020 AMS Award #### PRIMES Recognized in 2020 AMS Award The Department of Mathematics will receive the 2020 American Mathematical Society’s Award for Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department , for its Program for Research in Mathematics, Engineering, and Science for High School Students ( PRIMES ). This award recognizes 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. MIT PRIMES was founded by Pavel Etingof and Slava Gerovitch as an outreach program for high school students. To date, 408 students have participated in MIT PRIMES and PRIMES-USA, 103 completed the PRIMES Circle program, and 100 participated in the summer MathROOTS program. More than 130 PRIMES alumni have matriculated at MIT. • April 16: Nike Sun Awarded Doeblin Prize #### Nike Sun Awarded Doeblin Prize Nike Sun has been awarded the 2020 Wolfgang Doeblin Prize , awarded bi-annually by the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability. The prize is awarded to a single individual for outstanding research in the field of probability, and who is at the beginning of their mathematical career. Congratulations Nike! • March 2: Peter Shor Receives the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, and Is Elected to National Academy of Engineering #### Peter Shor Receives the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, and Is Elected to National Academy of Engineering Peter Shor , with Charles H. Bennett (IBM Research) and Gilles Brassard (University of Montreal), received The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award , in the category of Basic Sciences, "for their fundamental role in the development of quantum computation and cryptology." Peter was also recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his pioneering contributions to quantum computation. Congratulations Peter! • March 2: MIT Dominates Putnam Competition #### MIT Dominates Putnam Competition For the first time in Putnam history, in the 80th annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition , all of the top scorers, designated Putnam Fellows, were from one institution, MIT! In alphabetical order, the Fellows are Ashwin Sah, Kevin Sun Yuan Yao, Shentong Zhang, and Daniel Zhu. MIT also took 9 of the next 11 top spots, 8 of the following 12, and 33 of the 80 Honorable Mentions. Included among these participants were top female participants Dain Kim and Qi Qi. Qi was one of the three winners of the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize. Congratulations, everyone! • February 24: Peter Hintz Receives Sloan Research Fellowship #### Peter Hintz Receives Sloan Research Fellowship Congratulations to Assistant Professor Peter Hintz , who was awarded a 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship . Peter joined our department in 2019. He was among five MIT researchers from three departments who received the fellowship. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded 126 U.S. and Canadian early-career scientists and scholars, including 20 mathematicians,$75,000 fellowships to be used to further their research.

• January 30: Morgan Prize Honorable Mention Given to Four Students, Formerly or Presently Connected to the Mathematics Department

#### Morgan Prize Honorable Mention Given to Four Students, Formerly or Presently Connected to the Mathematics Department

MIT math graduate student Murilo Corato Zanarella received the 2020 Frank and Brennie Morgan Honorable Mention Prize for his undergraduate research at Princeton University. Three students, Mehtaab Sawhney '20, Ashwin Sah '20, and RSI alum David Stoner (graduate of Harvard, and now a graduate student at Stanford) were jointly awarded for their collection of papers on a wide range of topics in discrete mathematics. The Morgan Prizes were presented in January at the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meeting.

Congratulations, everyone!

• January 30: Larry Guth to Receive the Maryam Mirzakhani Prize of the National Academy of Sciences

#### Larry Guth to Receive the Maryam Mirzakhani Prize of the National Academy of Sciences

Larry Guth will receive the newly named Maryam Mirzakhani Prize in Mathematics (formerly the NAS Award in Mathematics) at the Academy's 157th annual meeting in April 2020.

He is recognized “for developing surprising, original, and deep connections between geometry, analysis, topology, and combinatorics, which have led to the solution of, or major advances on, many outstanding problems in these fields.” The Mirzakhani prize honors exceptional contributions to the mathematical sciences by a mid-career mathematician.

Congratulations Larry!

### 2019

• December 19: Alexei Borodin Receives the Fermat Prize

#### Alexei Borodin Receives the Fermat Prize

Alexei Borodin has been awarded the 2019 Fermat Prize for the invention of integrable probability theory, a new area at the interface of representation theory, combinatorics, and statistical physics.

The prize also went to Maryna Viazovska, professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

The Fermat Prize is awarded every two years by the Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse to one or several mathematicians under the age of 45, for contributions to an area where Pierre de Fermat's work was particularly influential: statements of variational principles; foundations of probability and analytical geometry; and number theory.

Alexei will also receive the 2020 Bernoulli Prize for an Outstanding Survey Article. He and his co-author, Leonid Petrov of the University of Virginia, were recognized for their article in Probability Surveys .

Congratulations Alexei!

• December 10: Russian Academy of Sciences Elects Gilbert Strang as Foreign Member

#### Russian Academy of Sciences Elects Gilbert Strang as Foreign Member

Gilbert Strang has been elected as a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), in the section of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science.

Gil is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Congratulations Gil!

• December 10: Lucas Mason-Brown named to Forbes 30 Under 30

#### Lucas Mason-Brown named to Forbes 30 Under 30

PhD candidate Lucas Mason-Brown is among those named to this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneurs listing. His work as a cofounder of Data for Black Lives has built a network of more than 4,000 scientists and activists committed to using data to create measurable change in the lives of black people. He shares this accolade with the organization’s co-founder, Yeshimabeit Milner.

Congratulations Lucas!

• December 10: PRIMES Names Lusztig Mentors

#### PRIMES Names Lusztig Mentors

Professor George Lusztig presented Yongyi Chen , Vishal Arul , and Kaavya Valiveti with 2020 George Lusztig PRIMES mentors awards at the Department’s annual Winter Social on December 3, 2019.

Yongyi Chen is a PRIMES 2011 alumnus who has served as a PRIMES , SPUR , and UROP+ mentor since 2017. His PRIMES student Kaan Dokmeci is a 2018 Regeneron STS scholar and a 2017 Siemens regional finalist .

Vishal Arul has served as a PRIMES and MathROOTS mentor since 2016, and has been the Academic Coordinator of MathROOTS since 2017. His PRIMES student Dhruv Rohatgi is a 2016 Siemens semifinalist and a 2017 Regeneron STS scholar .

Kaavya Valiveti began as a PRIMES mentor this year, and is leading two reading projects simultaneously.

Congratulations to Vishal, Yongyi, and Kaavya, and thank you George for making the Lusztig mentorship possible!

• December 10: Bonnie Berger to Deliver the AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture

#### Bonnie Berger to Deliver the AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture

Bonnie Berger has been selected to give the AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture at the 2020 SIAM Annual Meeting.

This Prize highlights the achievements of women in applied and computational mathematics. It was jointly established in 2002 to honor Sonia Kovalevsky and her work on the theory of differential equations.

Congratulations Bonnie!

• November 27: Larry Guth Receives Bôcher Memorial Prize

#### Larry Guth Receives Bôcher Memorial Prize

The American Mathematical Society has chosen Larry Guth to receive the 2020 Bôcher Memorial Prize .

Larry received the prize for his “deep and influential development of algebraic and topological methods for partitioning the Euclidean space and multi-scale organization of data, and his powerful applications of these tools in harmonic analysis, incidence geometry, analytic number theory, and partial differential equations.” Larry wrote about this technique in his book “ Polynomial Methods in Combinatorics .”

“Larry is being recognized for two outstanding papers that use polynomial partitioning, a powerful technique first introduced by Larry together with Nets Katz for their solution of the Erdos distinct distance problem in incidence geometry,” said Department Head Michel Goemans.

The other 2020 Bôcher Prize recipients are Camillo De Lellis and Laure Saint-Raymond, and previous recipients from MIT include Richard Melrose and Isadore Singer .

Congratulations, Larry!

• November 5: Chenyang Xu Is Named 2020 AMS Fellow

#### Chenyang Xu Is Named 2020 AMS Fellow

Chenyang Xu was among 52 mathematical scientists selected for the 2020 Class of American Mathematical Society Fellows .

He was recognized for “contributions to algebraic geometry, in particular the minimal model program and the K-stability of Fano varieties.”

Congratulations Chenyang!

• October 27: MIT Hosts the 2019 Math Prize for Girls

#### MIT Hosts the 2019 Math Prize for Girls

Congratulations to the winners of the 11th annual Math Prize for Girls created and organized by the Advantage Testing Foundation, which was hosted by the MIT Math Department during the weekend of October 12-13, 2019. The competition drew 276 girls from across the US and Canada to compete for cash prizes. Gigliola Staffilani gave the Maryam Mirzakhani keynote lecture, named in honor of Mirzakhani, who was the first woman mathematician to receive the Fields Medal.

• October 22: Alan Edelman to Receive the Sidney Fernbach Award

#### Alan Edelman to Receive the Sidney Fernbach Award

For his work on the Julia programming language, Alan Edelman has been selected to receive the 2019 IEEE Computer Society Sidney Fernbach Award .

Edelman was cited “for outstanding breakthroughs in high performance computing, linear algebra, and computational science and for contributions to the Julia programming language.”

One of the IEEE Computer Society's highest honors, the Sidney Fernbach Award recognizes outstanding contributions in the application of high-performance computers (HPC) using innovative approaches.

Congratulations Alan!

• October 8: Victor Kac to Be Inducted Into Accademia Nationale dei Lincei

#### Victor Kac to Be Inducted Into Accademia Nationale dei Lincei

Victor Kac will join Galileo and Einstein as a member to the Accademia Nationale dei Lincei, the oldest science academy in the world.

“I was quite surprised and profoundly honored,” says Kac, who joins only 20 other Accademia foreign members in math, such as Fields medalists Pierre Deligne, Pierre-Louis Lions, David Mumford, and Shing-Tung Yau.

Congratulations Victor!

• October 7: Three Teams Share Rogers Prize

#### Three Teams Share Rogers Prize

From left, David Jerison, Shengtong Zhang, Yuan Yao, Jonathan Tidor, Douglas Stryker, Ao Sun, Qiuyu Ren, Yuqiu Fu, and Ankur Moitra.

SPUR , our Summer Program in Undergraduate Research, wrapped up another ambitious season with three teams sharing the 2019 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper .

Yuan Yao and Shengtong Zhang and their mentor and SPUR alum Jonathan Tidor presented “ Equiangular Lines with a Fixed Angle ,” which judges cited as a “breakthrough solution of a longstanding problem in equiangular lines.” The panel was also impressed by their results in spectral graph theory. The project was suggested by Zilin Jiang and Yufei Zhao .

Douglas Stryker and mentor Ao Sun were awarded for “Construction of High Codimension Ancient Mean Curvature Flows and Codimension Bounds by the Tangent Flow at —∞,” for “the construction of the first example of ancient solutions to mean curvature flow for curves in higher-dimensional Euclidean space.” The panel also commended Douglas “for his superb presentation.” The project was suggested by William Minicozzi .

Quiyu Ren and mentor Yuqui Fu ’s “On the Union of Essentially Distinct δ-tubes” was cited for research on problems motivated by the Kakeya conjecture. Specifically, the panel was “impressed by the rigidity results and new insights into measures of near-convexity.” The project was suggested by Larry Guth .

The teams were among several who presented their findings before the faculty panel of Davesh Maulik , Richard Stanley , and Yufei Zhao at the annual SPUR Conference , which was held August 2, 2019. The conference was hosted by SPUR/SPUR+ faculty advisors David Jerison and Ankur Moitra , and program director Slava Gerovitch . Thanks go out to the Rogers family for their support of this program.

• October 4: Wei Zhang Receives Clay Research Award

#### Wei Zhang Receives Clay Research Award

Wei Zhang received the 2019 Clay Research Award, in recognition of his work in arithmetic geometry and arithmetic aspects of automorphic forms . Presented by the Clay Mathematics Institute , the award notes his “landmark contributions” that include a proof of the global Gan-Gross-Prasad conjecture for a wide class of automorphic representations of unitary groups, a proof he did with Zhiwei Yun of a higher-order generalization of the Gross-Zagier formula over function fields, and a proof of Kolyvagin’s conjecture on the structure of Selmer groups for a large class of elliptic curves over Q.

He formulated an arithmetic version of the Gan-Gross-Prasad Conjecture – a vision for a far-reaching generalization of the Gross-Zagier formula over number fields – and pioneered a relative trace formula approach to its proof. He recently achieved a major step in this program by proving the Arithmetic Fundamental Lemma.

The award was presented to Wei Zhang at the Clay Research Conference in Oxford in October 2019. In 2017, Wei was awarded the 2018 New Horizons in Mathematics Breakthrough Prize with Zhiwei Yun.

Congratulations Wei!

• October 3: Four PRIMES Students Receive Davidson Prizes

#### Four PRIMES Students Receive Davidson Prizes

A record number of Davidson Institute Fellowships received — 4! — were collected by our PRIMES high school students this summer. They swept all three prizes in math, and won the only award in Massachusetts.

Aayush Karan , 17, of Muskego, WI, received the $25,000 Davidson Fellowship for his project “Generating Set for Nonzero Determinant Links under Skein Relation,” done under the mentorship of CLE Moore instructor Dr. Jianfeng Lin, and published in Topology and Its Applications 265 (2019). He said in his award statement, “Under Dr. Lin’s mentorship, I not only completed my project in knot theory but was able to learn a great deal about the research process.” Aayush has entered MIT as a freshman this fall. Daniel Zhu , 17, of Potomac, MD, received the$10,000 scholarship for his project "On the Okounkov-Olshanski formula for the number of tableaux of skew shapes,"" under mentor UMass-Amherst Prof. Alejandro Morales, MIT Math PhD '12. In his statement, he said that Prof. Morales was "a constant source of ideas, suggestions, or just simply motivation."

Two others received honorable mentions: Merrick Cai, who also is attending MIT this fall, and was mentored by Daniil Kalinov ; and Sanjit Bhat of Acton, MA, under mentor Dimitris Tsipras of EECS.

"I wish to congratulate PRIMES Chief Advisor Pavel Etingof , Head Mentor Tanya Khovanova , and the mentors , and to thank them for their dedication and hard work!" said PRIMES Director Slava Gerovitch .

• September 18: The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

#### The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

42 = (-80538738812075974) 3 + 80435758145817515 3 + 12602123297335631 3

• August 15: Daniel Freedman Wins Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

Professor emeritus Daniel Z. Freedman has been awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He shares the $3 million prize with two colleagues, Sergio Ferrara of CERN and Peter van Nieuwenhuizen of Stony Brook University, with whom he developed the theory of supergravity. “Dan’s work on supergravity has changed how scientists think about physics beyond the standard model, combining principles of supersymmetry and Einstein’s theory of general relativity,” says Michael Sipser, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Donner Professor of Mathematics. “His exemplary research is central to mathematical physics and has given us new pathways to explore in quantum field theory and superstring theory.” Congratulations Dan! Read more about Dan’s achievement in the MIT News . • July 24: Bonnie Berger Receives ISCB Senior Scientist Award #### Bonnie Berger Receives ISCB Senior Scientist Award Bonnie Berger was honored by the International Society for Computational Biology for the Senior Scientist Accomplishment Award at the ISMB/ECCB Conference, July 21-25, 2019 in Basel, Switzerland. At the conference, Bonnie presented the keynote address, "Biomedical Data Sharing and Analysis at Scale." The ISCB Senior Scientist Accomplishment Award recognizes leaders in the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics for their significant research, education, and service contribution. Congratulations Bonnie! • July 23: Zhiwei Yun Awarded ICCM Gold Medal #### Zhiwei Yun Awarded ICCM Gold Medal Zhiwei Yun received the Gold Medal of Mathematics at June’s 8th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) in Beijing. At the last Congress, which was in 2016, Zhiwei had received a Silver medal, and Wei Zhang received a Gold medal. Formerly known as the Morningside Medal of Mathematics, this recognition is given to exceptional mathematicians of Chinese descent under the age of 45 for their achievements in pure and applied mathematics. Congratulations Zhiwei! • July 21: Elchanan Mossel Named 2019 Simons Investigator #### Elchanan Mossel Named 2019 Simons Investigator Elchanan Mossel has been named a 2019 Simons Investigator in Mathematics. This award is given to outstanding theoretical scientists to support long-term investigations of fundamental questions. Congratulations Elchanan! • July 16: Tenure Granted to Semyon Dyatlov and Ankur Moitra #### Tenure Granted to Semyon Dyatlov and Ankur Moitra The MIT Corporation Executive Committee has approved faculty promotions for Semyon Dyatlov and Ankur Moitra . Semyon and Ankur were promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure. Read more about them and six other recently promoted School of Science professors at MIT News . Congratulations Semyon and Ankur! • July 1: Nike Sun Receives NSF CAREER Award #### Nike Sun Receives NSF CAREER Award Associate Professor Nike Sun has been honored with an award through the Faculty Early Career Development Program for her project “Phase Transitions in Randomized Combinatorial Search and Optimization Problems.” Congratulations Nike! • July 1: Bjorn Poonen Appointed Distinguished Professor in Science #### Bjorn Poonen Appointed Distinguished Professor in Science Professor Bjorn Poonen has been appointed as the inaugural Distinguished Professor in Science by the School of Science. Congratulations Bjorn! • July 1: Larry Guth Appointed Claude E. Shannon Professor of Mathematics #### Larry Guth Appointed Claude E. Shannon Professor of Mathematics Professor Larry Guth has been selected as the Claude E. Shannon Professor of Mathematics. Congratulations Larry! • July 1: Laurent Demanet Promoted to Professor of Applied Mathematics #### Laurent Demanet Promoted to Professor of Applied Mathematics Laurent Demanet has been promoted from Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics to Professor of Applied Mathematics. Congratulations Laurent! • June 6: Congratulations to our 2019 PhDs! #### Congratulations to our 2019 PhDs! • June 1: Eric Larson PhD '18 Receives Hertz Foundation Thesis Award #### Eric Larson PhD '18 Receives Hertz Foundation Thesis Award Math alum Eric Larson PhD ’18 earned the 2019 Hertz Thesis Prize from the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation for providing a proof for a long-unsolved mathematical problem as his April 2018 doctoral thesis “The Maximal Rank Conjecture.” “To have a mathematics thesis win a Hertz Thesis Prize is extremely special. It’s never happened before,” said Hertz Fellow Thomas Weaver. “In my opinion, this is the most remarkable thesis in pure math that I’ve ever seen a Hertz Fellow produce.” Larson continues to work on the interpolation problem with his wife, Isabel Vogt PhD ’19. They will both complete postdoctoral appointments at Stanford next year, then begin tenure-track faculty positions at the University of Washington in 2020. Congratulations Eric! • May 17: Vishal Arul, Gweneth McKinley, and Sam Turton Receive 2019 Housman Awards #### Vishal Arul, Gweneth McKinley, and Sam Turton Receive 2019 Housman Awards Graduate students Vishal Arul , Gweneth McKinley , and Sam Turton have each been awarded the Charles and Holly Housman Award for excellence in teaching. This award is presented to graduate students in mathematics for skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching. Congratulations Vishal, Gwen, and Sam! • May 17: 2019 MIT Convocation Awards Math Seniors Ahaan Rungta and Luke Sciarappa (Archive) #### 2019 MIT Convocation Awards Math Seniors Ahaan Rungta and Luke Sciarappa (Archive) Ahaan Rungta received the Harold J. Pettegrove Award, given in recognition of outstanding service to intramural athletics. Luke Sciarappa received the Frederick Gardiner Fassett Jr. award, presented annually to up to three individuals of the Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups (FSILG), who have most unselfishly demonstrated the qualities of spirit, dedication, and service in furthering the ideals of MIT brotherhood, sisterhood, and membership excellence. Congratulations Ahaan and Luke! • May 16: Cesar Cuenca Earns 2019 Johnson Prize #### Cesar Cuenca Earns 2019 Johnson Prize The 2019 Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal went to Cesar Cuenca , a fifth-year doctoral candidate. His paper “ BC type z-measures and determinantal point processes ” was published in Advances in Mathematics on August 20, 2018. Congratulations Cesar! • May 12: Bill Minicozzi and Yufei Zhao Earn 2019 First-Year Advisor Awards #### Bill Minicozzi and Yufei Zhao Earn 2019 First-Year Advisor Awards MIT awarded Bill Minicozzi the Outstanding Veteran First-Year Advisor award, and Yufei Zhao the Innovative First-Year Seminar award for his Putnam Seminar . The award ceremony was held on May 16 in the Student Center, to celebrate the outstanding contributions of first year students, their advisors, and associate advisors. Congratulations Bill and Yufei! • May 10: Ashwin Sah Receives the Goldwater Scholarship #### Ashwin Sah Receives the Goldwater Scholarship Math major Ashwin Sah received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship for 2019-2020. Mentored by Yufei Zhao and Joseph Gallian (University of Minnesota Duluth), Ashwin was among 496 college students selected on the basis of academic merit, from a nationwide field of candidates. Read More at MIT News Congratulations Ashwin! • May 9: Gil Strang Is Still Going Strong, Online and in Print #### Gil Strang Is Still Going Strong, Online and in Print Gilbert Strang ’s Linear Algebra class now exceeds 10 million views on OpenCourseWare . That’s the kind of math that makes him one of the most recognized mathematicians in the world. “He is a favorite; there is no way around it,” says OCW Director Curt Newton. “It’s clear that Gil’s teaching has struck just the right chord with learners and educators around the world.” He also published his 12th book to accompany his latest class, 18.065 (Matrix Methods in Data Analysis, Signal Processing, and Machine Learning.) Read more about Gil at MIT News . • May 9: Yunkun Zhou Receives Jon A. Bucsela Prize #### Yunkun Zhou Receives Jon A. Bucsela Prize Senior Yunkun Zhou has received the 2019 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics. Congratulations Yunkun! • May 1: Kristin Kurianski Honored at MIT Graduate Women of Excellence Celebration #### Kristin Kurianski Honored at MIT Graduate Women of Excellence Celebration Doctoral student Kristin Marie-Dettmers Kurianski has been chosen as an honoree in the 2019 biennial celebration of Graduate Women of Excellence. The celebration by the Office of the Dean for Graduate Education recognizes graduate women based on their leadership and service contributions at the Institute, their dedication to mentoring, and their drive to make changes to improve the student experience. Kristin and others were recognized on April 29, where honorees presented posters on their accomplishments and future plans. Congratulations Kristin! • April 26: Peter Shor receives 2018 Micius Quantum Prize #### Peter Shor receives 2018 Micius Quantum Prize Professor Peter Shor receives the 2018 Micius Quantum Prize , "for his groundbreaking theoretical work on factoring algorithms and quantum error correction." The Micius Quantum Prize is given by the recently established Micius Quantum Foundation, in recognition of "significant science advance ranging from the early conceptual contributions to the recent experimental breakthroughs." Professor Shor is one of six Micius Quantum Prize recipients. Read more at MIT News . Congratulations Peter! • April 23: David Jerison Receives Guggenheim Fellowship #### David Jerison Receives Guggenheim Fellowship Professor David Jerison has been awarded a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . He is among 168 winners, chosen among nearly 3,000 applicants. David will use the fellowship to study interfaces that divide regions in optimal ways, such as those interfaces that minimize energy, cost, or loss of information. Read more at MIT News . Congratulations David! • April 12: Tanya Khovanova Selected for the School of Science Infinite Mile Award #### Tanya Khovanova Selected for the School of Science Infinite Mile Award Lecturer Tanya Khovanova will receive the School of Science Infinite Mile Award , in the "Mentor Award" category. Tanya is the head mentor of the math section of MIT's Research Science Institute (RSI), and since its inception in 2010, of MIT PRIMES . She was nominated for her exceptional ability to guide her colleagues and inspire them to attain goals. Congratulations Tanya! • April 12: Kim DeMayo and Jonathan Harmon to Receive Infinite Mile Awards #### Kim DeMayo and Jonathan Harmon to Receive Infinite Mile Awards Department Staff Members Kimberli DeMayo (Human Resources Coordinator) and Jonathan Harmon (Faculty Support) are among this year’s recipients of the School of Science Infinite Mile Award . Both were nominated in the "Beyond Expectations" category, consistently going above and beyond their job expectations. Congratulations Kim and Jonathan! • March 26: Victor Kac Receives Simons Fellowship #### Victor Kac Receives Simons Fellowship Professor Victor Kac was awarded a 2019 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics. Outstanding mathematicians recognized by the Simons Fellows program are able to extend sabbatical leaves from one term to a full year, enabling recipients to focus solely on research for the long periods often necessary for significant advances. Victor will spend his 2019-2020 sabbatical at the University of Rome, La Sapienza. Congratulations Victor! • March 22: Tom Leighton Wins Visionary Award #### Tom Leighton Wins Visionary Award Professor Tom Leighton PhD ’81 received SC Media's first ever Visionary award as Akamai Technologies' chief executive officer, at the 23rd annual SC Awards gala on March 6, 2019, in San Francisco. The Visionaries of the Last 30 Years category honors those who have shaped the industry and will serve to impact the future. Akamai also took home the Best Web Application Solution award for its Kona Site Defender web application. Congratulations Tom! • March 22: Semyon Dyatlov, Yufei Zhao, Larry Guth, Pei-Ken Hung and Zhouli Xu Receive ICCM Best Paper Awards #### Semyon Dyatlov, Yufei Zhao, Larry Guth, Pei-Ken Hung and Zhouli Xu Receive ICCM Best Paper Awards Several in the MIT math community received Best Paper Awards from the 2018 International Consortium of Chinese Mathematicians in December. Awardees included: The ICCM Global Selection Committee included Bjorn Poonen , and the award ceremony featured a Distinguished Lecture by George Lusztig . • March 22: Andrew Lawrie Receives the Edmund F. Kelly Award #### Andrew Lawrie Receives the Edmund F. Kelly Award The Edmund F. Kelly Research Award has been awarded to Assistant Professor Andrew Lawrie . Every three years, the mathematics department gives this award to a junior faculty member "in recognition of work that applies mathematical methods to a new area or that offers a fundamentally new perspective on a classical problem." Congratulations Andrew! • February 26: MIT Takes 2nd Place in Putnam Competition, Two Named Putnam Fellows #### MIT Takes 2nd Place in Putnam Competition, Two Named Putnam Fellows In the 79th annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition , the team of Junyao Peng, Ashwin Sah, and Yunkun Zhou took second place, behind Harvard. Yuan Yao and Shengtong Zhang were among the five Putnam Fellows. MIT took 9 of the next 10 top spots, including Danielle Wang, who will receive her second Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize. (Danielle recently was also a runner-up in the 2019 Alice T. Schafer Mathematics Prize from the AWM .) Our students took 6 of the next 12 spots, and 28 out of 74 honorable mentions. In total, MIT students dominated in the demanding six-hour mathematics competition, taking 45 of the top 101 spots. “I am super proud of our students' performance on the Putnam Competition,” said Yufei Zhao, our Putnam coach. “The number of high scorers from MIT shows the unparalleled strength of our undergraduate math community.” Administered by the Mathematical Association of America on December 1, the competition included 164 MIT students among 4,623 test-takers from 568 U.S. and Canadian institutions. Read more at MIT News . Congratulations! • February 26: Ewain Gwynne Named Clay Research Fellow #### Ewain Gwynne Named Clay Research Fellow Congratulations to Ewain Gwynne PhD ’18, who has been named a 2019 Clay Research Fellow . Ewain, whose PhD advisor was Scott Sheffield , is now a postdoc at the University of Cambridge. Clay Research Fellows are recent PhDs who are selected for their research and their potential to become leaders in research mathematics. Peter Hintz is also a Clay Research Fellow. Past fellows include professors Roman Bezrukavnikov, Alexei Borodin, Semyon Dyatlov, Davesh Maulik, and Aaron Pixton. Congratulations Ewain (and Scott!). • February 22: Andrew Lawrie and Yufei Zhao Receive Sloan Fellowships #### Andrew Lawrie and Yufei Zhao Receive Sloan Fellowships Congratulations to Andrew Lawrie and Yufei Zhao , who were among four at MIT awarded 2019 Sloan Research Fellowships . Andrew has been an assistant professor with us since 2016, and Yufei since 2017. Sloan Fellows are selected on “the basis of a candidate’s research accomplishments, creativity, and potential to become a leader in his or her field.” The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded 126 U.S. and Canadian early-career scientists and scholars$70,000 fellowships to be used to further their research.

Read more in the MIT News .

• February 22: Bonnie Berger Receives ISCB Award

#### Bonnie Berger Receives ISCB Award

Simons Professor of Mathematics Bonnie Berger has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the International Society for Computational Biology Senior Scientist Award.

ISCB is the premier society in computational biology and bioinformatics with 3,400 members. The ISCB annual award recognizes “highly significant, long-term career achievement,” in Bonnie’s case for visionary, foundational, and deep contributions to the field.

“It’s a tremendous honor to join such a distinguished and accomplished group of scientists,” Bonnie said.

Bonnie will receive this award and will be giving the Senior Scientist keynote at the ISMB/ECCB 2019 meeting July 21–25, 2019, in Basel, Switzerland.

She was also named an ISCB Fellow in 2012.

Congratulations Bonnie!

• February 13: Mathematician Finds Balance and Beauty in Math

#### Mathematician Finds Balance and Beauty in Math

"It was a feeling of solving something that most people couldn’t solve, I think, that triggered my interest," said Zhiwei Yun , of being in third grade when he discovered an interest in math. Read about Zhiwei's transition into math research, why he came to MIT, and more in the MIT News .

• January 30: Aden Forrow Receives 1851 Research Fellowship and Jonasz Slomka Receives ETH Zurich Postdoctoral Fellowship

Aden was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Previous recipients include Paul Dirac and Peter Higgs. Aden will pursue his research program in applied mathematics at the University of Oxford. Aden worked with Jörn on “ Functional Control of Network Dynamics Using Designed Laplacian Spectra ,” published December 7, 2018, in Physical Review X.

Jonasz was awarded an ETH Zurich Postdoctoral Fellowship , and will be hosted by the group of Prof. Roman Stocker , a former MIT math instructor. Jonasz and Jörn collaborated on mirror-symmetry breaking and turbulence in active fluids, published in PNAS and Journal of Fluid Mechanics .

### 2018

• December 12: PRIMES Alum Ravi Jagadeesan Earns Morgan Prize

#### PRIMES Alum Ravi Jagadeesan Earns Morgan Prize

PRIMES alumnus Ravi Jagadeesan uses his bagel to explain the concept of a Riemann surface as part of his 2013 PRIMES presentation. Now a PhD student at Harvard, he received the 2019 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student. In his acceptance note, Ravi thanked PRIMES and Pavel Etingof .

Congratulations Ravi!

• December 12: Christian Gaetz, Zhulin Li, and Chris Ryba Named Lusztig Mentors

#### Christian Gaetz, Zhulin Li, and Chris Ryba Named Lusztig Mentors

For the upcoming year, Christian Gaetz , Zhulin Li , and Chris Ryba have been selected as 2019 George Lusztig PRIMES mentors .

Christian has served as a PRIMES , DRP , and UROP+ mentor since 2017. His PRIMES student Ayush Agarwal is a 2018 Regeneron STS scholar .

Zhulin has served as a PRIMES, RSI , and DRP mentor since January 2017.

Chris has served as a PRIMES and UROP+ mentor since 2017. His PRIMES student Mihir Singhal is a 2018 Regeneron STS scholar.

Congratulations to Christian, Zhulin, and Chris, and thank you Professor George Lusztig for making the Lusztig mentorship possible!

• December 3: Radha Mastandrea and Kyle Swanson Named 2019 Marshall Scholars

#### Radha Mastandrea and Kyle Swanson Named 2019 Marshall Scholars

Senior Radha Mastandrea and Kyle Swanson ’18 are among five MIT students awarded Marshall Scholarships .

Radha, a physics and mathematics double major*, will study theoretical and experimental physics at Cambridge University before returning to the United States to pursue her PhD in high-energy particle physics.

Kyle graduated with a double major in mathematics and computer science, and a minor in music, and will receive his MEng in computer science and engineering this spring. As a Marshall Scholar, Swanson will study mathematics and computer science at Cambridge.

*Radha has since withdrawn from being a math major

• November 1: Bonnie Berger, Larry Guth, Elchanan Mossel, Zhiwei Yun, and Wei Zhang Named 2019 AMS Fellows

#### Bonnie Berger, Larry Guth, Elchanan Mossel, Zhiwei Yun, and Wei Zhang Named 2019 AMS Fellows

Bonnie Berger , Larry Guth , Elchanan Mossel , Zhiwei Yun , and Wei Zhang were among 65 mathematical scientists selected for the 2019 Class of American Mathematical Society Fellows .

They were recognized for “outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics,” with the following citations:

• Bonnie Berger for contributions to computational biology, bioinformatics, algorithms, and for mentoring;
• Larry Guth for contributions to harmonic analysis, combinatorics, and geometry, and for exposition of high-level mathematics;
• Elchanan Mossel for contributions to probability, combinatorics, computing, and especially the interface between them;
• Zhiwei Yun for contributions to geometry, number theory, and representation theory, including his construction of motives with exceptional Galois groups;
• Wei Zhang for contributions to number theory, algebraic geometry, and geometric representation theory.

Congratulations Bonnie, Larry, Elchanan, Zhiwei, and Wei!

• October 30: PRIMES Student Espen Slettnes Wins Broadcom Math Prize

#### PRIMES Student Espen Slettnes Wins Broadcom Math Prize

PRIMES-USA student intern Espen Slettnes won first place in Mathematics at 2018 Broadcom MASTERS , a national science and engineering competition for middle-school students.

Espen is a home-schooled eighth grader from Castro Valley, California, who presented at the PRIMES conference in May. Espen’s project was "Minimal Embedding Dimensions of Rectangle k-Visibility Graphs," under mentor Jesse Geneson PhD ’15. Jesse and Espen will also have asteroids named in their honor by MIT Lincoln Lab, as part of the Ceres Connection program.

“Our PRIMES students continue to win all the top awards in the country, and they are getting even younger!” said Department Head Michel Goemans . “Congrats to Espen (and Jesse), and to Slava Gerovitch , Tanya Khovanova , and Pavel Etingof for creating and directing such an amazing, highly successful math enrichment program.”

• October 18: Chenyang Xu Wins New Horizons Prize

#### Chenyang Xu Wins New Horizons Prize

Chenyang Xu will receive a 2019 New Horizons in Mathematics Prize for his work on the Minimal Model Program in algebraic geometry.

The "early-career" version of the Breakthrough Prize is awarded to promising junior researchers who have already produced important work in mathematics.

Prior to joining our department this year, Chenyang was a professor at the Beijing International Center of Mathematical Research. He recently spoke at ICM 2018 , and was awarded China’s inaugural Future Science Prize in Mathematics and Computer Science in 2017.

Previous MIT recipients of the New Horizons Prize in Mathematics are Larry Guth in 2016, and Wei Zhang and Zhiwei Yun in 2018.

Read more about the winners and where to watch the awards ceremony at the MIT News .

Vadim Gorin earned the 2018 Young Scientist Prize of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics .

The award, received in July at International Association of Mathematical Physics’ International Congress on Mathematical Physics , in Montreal, Canada, is “for his groundbreaking work on the universality of local correlations in random tilings and nonintersecting random walks, and the discovery of locally interacting particle systems linked to random matrix ensembles.”

• October 11: Semyon Dyatlov Receives Early Career Awards

#### Semyon Dyatlov Receives Early Career Awards

Semyon Dyatlov received the 2018 Early Career Award from the International Association of Mathematical Physics at July’s International Congress on Mathematical Physics in Montreal, Canada.

Given in recognition of a single achievement in Mathematical Physics, this triennial award went to Semyon for his “introduction and the proof of the fractal uncertainty principle (FUP), which has important applications to quantum chaos and to observability and control of quantum systems.”

Semyon recently also received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation’s Division of Mathematical Sciences for “Classical and Quantum Chaos.”

Congratulations Semyon!

• September 5: PRIMES-USA student Franklyn Wang and RSI Student David Wu Win Davidson Awards

Two students participating in PRIMES and RSI recently received $25,000 Davidson Fellows Scholarships. PRIMES-USA participant Franklyn Wang, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology and Regeneron Science Talent Search 2018 finalist, won for solving a math problem that has puzzled mathematicians for nearly a century. Franklyn presented his findings in his paper "Monodromy Groups of Indecomposable Rational Functions," mentored by Prof. Michael Zieve of the University of Michigan. David Wu , now an MIT freshman, wrote his paper under mentor and MIT doctoral student Robert Burklund , as part of the 2017 RSI math program class. The paper, “Nonuniform Distributions of Patterns of Sequences of Primes in Prime Moduli,” aims to improve methods for gathering data on prime number patterns by several orders of magnitude, and may be applied to cryptography and cybersecurity. David was also a 2017 Siemens semifinalist and a 2018 Regeneron STS finalist . Three other PRIMES students earned honorable mentions: Ayush Agarwal of San Ramon, CA, Louis Golowich of Lexington, MA, and Michael Ma of Plano, TX. The 2018 Davidson Fellows will be recognized in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. PRIMES and RSI programs last year were run by faculty advisors Pavel Etingof , David Jerison , and Ankur Moitra , program director Slava Gerovitch , and head mentor Tanya Khovanova . • August 20: Ankur Moitra and Bill Minicozzi Earn School of Science Teaching Prizes #### Ankur Moitra and Bill Minicozzi Earn School of Science Teaching Prizes Ankur Moitra and Bill Minicozzi were among four recipients of the School of Science’s 2018 Teaching Prizes for Graduate and Undergraduate Education. Ankur was awarded the prize for graduate education for a course he designed called “Algorithmic Aspects of Machine Learning” (18.S996/18.409). Notes from this class have been turned into a monograph, which has already been used in courses across the country. Nominators said Moitra distinguished himself as an inspirational, caring, and captivating teacher. Bill was awarded the prize for undergraduate education for his teaching of “Multivariable Calculus” (18.02). Students consistently praised his clarity, ability to engage the class, and sense of humor. Nominators also noted his ability to treat difficult topics at an appropriate pace in his upper-level undergraduate courses. The prizes are awarded annually to School of Science faculty members who demonstrate excellence in teaching. Winners are chosen from nominations by their students or colleagues. Read more at the School of Science . • August 20: Alan Edelman's Julia 1.0 Debuts at Convention #### Alan Edelman's Julia 1.0 Debuts at Convention Julia, a free, open-source programming language created by Alan Edelman and others at MIT, was officially launched as Julia 1.0 at the recent JuliaCon in London. “The release of 1.0 says that Julia is now ready to change the technical world by combining the high-level productivity and ease of use of Python and R with the lightning-fast speed of C++,” said Alan, in a CSAIL article. Julia, used by technical coders at such places as Google, Facebook, and the Department of Energy, has helped power self-driving cars and MIT robots , and used in such fields as precision medicine , augmented reality , and genomics . See CSAIL’s article on Julia 1.0. See YouTube video “A Conversation with Gilbert Strang,” where Gil spoke at JuliaCon about linear algebra and computational math. Listen to Alan talk about Julia 1.0 with WBUR. • August 17: Jörn Dunkel and Others Solve Age-old Spaghetti Mystery #### Jörn Dunkel and Others Solve Age-old Spaghetti Mystery If you happen to have a box of spaghetti in your pantry, try this experiment: Pull out a single spaghetti stick and hold it at both ends. Now bend it until it breaks. How many fragments did you make? If the answer is three or more, pull out another stick and try again. Can you break the noodle in two? If not, you’re in very good company. It’s nearly impossible to break a dry spaghetti noodle into only two pieces. Showing how it’s done is an MIT study by Jörn Dunkel , his graduate student Vishal Patil , instructor Norbert Stoop , and others. The spaghetti challenge, which flummoxed even the likes of famed physicist Richard Feynman ’39, was solved in their paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . Read more on MIT News. • August 7: 2018 Rogers Prize Shared by Three Teams #### 2018 Rogers Prize Shared by Three Teams The 2018 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper was awarded to three teams, to be split evenly, as decided by the faculty committee ( Ju-Lee Kim , Bill Minicozzi , and Elchanan Mossel ). SPUR student Julius Baldauf-Lenschen and mentor Ao Sun were awarded “for a sharp lower bound for the entropy of immersed curves with type 1 singularities and an excellent, clear presentation.” The project was suggested by Bill Minicozzi. SPUR+ students Juan Gil and Joshua Amaniampong and mentor Jake Wellens , who suggested the project, were awarded "for new theoretical applications of partial rejection sampling and their practical implementation." SPUR student Dhruv Rohatgi and mentor Jake Wellens were awarded "for elegant design constructions, their application to bi-partite clique partitions and for novel contributions to ordered Ramsey theory." The project was suggested by Asaf Ferber . Congratulations to all of the students and mentors. We also appreciate everyone who helped out, including those who provided ideas for the projects , all of the mentors, SPUR/SPUR+ faculty advisers Davesh Maulik and Ankur Moitra , and the program director, Slava Gerovitch , along with the Rogers family for their support of this program. • July 18: Peter Shor Receives the IEEE Sumner Award and Information Theory Society Paper Award #### Peter Shor Receives the IEEE Sumner Award and Information Theory Society Paper Award Peter Shor has been awarded the IEEE’s 2018 Eric E. Sumner Award for Outstanding Contributions to Communications Theory, specifically "for contributions to quantum communication and information theory." He also received the 2017 Information Theory Society Paper Award for "The Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem and Resource Tradeoffs for Simulating Quantum Channels," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory , May 2014, which he wrote with MIT Physics Professor Aram Harrow, Charles Bennett, Igor Devetak, and Andreas Winter. This award is given annually for an outstanding publication in the fields of interest to the Society appearing anywhere during the preceding four calendar years. Congratulations Peter! • July 17: Zhao Receives the School of Science Future of Science Award, 2018 Dénes König Prize, and Named Class of 1956 Career Development Assistant Professor #### Zhao Receives the School of Science Future of Science Award, 2018 Dénes König Prize, and Named Class of 1956 Career Development Assistant Professor Yufei Zhao has been named the second recipient of the School of Science’s Future of Science Award . Among other research accomplishments, Yufei with three undergraduates solved an open problem concerning the number of independent sets in an irregular graph—a conjecture first proposed in 2001. Yufei was also recently named the Class of 1956 Career Development Assistant Professor, effective July 2018. Last month, SIAM awarded Yufei the 2018 Dénes König Prize , given biennially to an early career researcher for outstanding research in discrete mathematics. “Yufei exemplifies the best of our faculty members,” says Department Head Michel Goemans. “He is a skilled, creative researcher who is also an outstanding teacher and mentor both in and outside the classroom.” Congratulations Yufei! • July 1: Jonathan Kelner Promoted to Professor of Applied Mathematics #### Jonathan Kelner Promoted to Professor of Applied Mathematics Jonathan Kelner has been promoted from Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics to Professor of Applied Mathematics. Congratulations Jonathan! • June 28: Pavel Etingof Earns MIT's Perkins Award #### Pavel Etingof Earns MIT's Perkins Award Professor Pavel Etingof has been awarded MIT’s Frank E. Perkins award for Excellence in Graduate Advising . Named in honor of Frank E. Perkins, Dean of the Graduate School from 1983-85, this award is presented to a faculty member who demonstrates unbounded compassion and dedication toward students. He also earned this award in 2015. Congratulations Pavel! • June 11: David Jerison Receives Simons Fellowship #### David Jerison Receives Simons Fellowship David Jerison was awarded a 2018 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics . This award is granted to scientists with great research potential based on their accomplishments over the past five years. Congratulations David! • June 7: Congratulations To Our New PhDs in Mathematics! #### Congratulations To Our New PhDs in Mathematics! • May 23: Ewain Gwynne, Jonasz Slomka, Amelia Perry and Alex Wein Earn 2018 Johnson Prize #### Ewain Gwynne, Jonasz Slomka, Amelia Perry and Alex Wein Earn 2018 Johnson Prize The Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal went to four students in 2018: Congratulations! • May 22: Kevin Sackel and Jane Wang Receive Housman Awards #### Kevin Sackel and Jane Wang Receive Housman Awards Graduate students Kevin Sackel and Jane Wang have each been awarded the Charles and Holly Housman Award for excellence in teaching. This award is presented to graduate students in mathematics for skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching. Congratulations Kevin and Jane! • May 21: Sammy Luo Receives Jon A. Bucsela Prize #### Sammy Luo Receives Jon A. Bucsela Prize Math major Sammy Luo '18 received the 2018 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics. Congratulations Sammy! • May 20: Bertrand Stone '18 Receives Sudler Prize #### Bertrand Stone '18 Receives Sudler Prize Math major Bertrand Stone ’18 received the 2018 Louis Sudler Prize for his contributions to music at MIT, including his flute concerto, which was premiered by MITSO last fall. Read more about Bertrand at Arts at MIT . Congratulations Bertrand! • April 25: Theresa Cummings Receives Infinite Mile Award #### Theresa Cummings Receives Infinite Mile Award Academic Services staffer Theresa Cummings is one of this year’s recipients of the School of Science Infinite Mile Award . Theresa was nominated for the “Beyond Expectation Award,” for consistently going above and beyond the requirements of her job to make the Math Department a better place. Theresa manages the complex enterprise surrounding the department's massive service courses (18.01, 18.02, 18.03, ...), as well as managing all of the make-up, conflict, special-needs, and advanced standing exams, and a host of other special topics. She is also an important point of contact with the Registrar’s Office, Student Disability Services, the UAAP, GECD, and other departments. Congratulations Theresa! • April 18: Alexei Borodin and Larry Guth Named AAAS Fellows #### Alexei Borodin and Larry Guth Named AAAS Fellows Alexei Borodin and Larry Guth have been elected as Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . With members including many of the most accomplished scholars and practitioners worldwide, the American Academy is one of the country's oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers. Congratulations Alexei and Larry! • April 6: Gigliola Staffilani Receives MIT's Earll M. Murman Award #### Gigliola Staffilani Receives MIT's Earll M. Murman Award Gigliola Staffilani is this year’s recipient of the Earll M. Murman Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising . The award is "presented to a faculty member who has served as an excellent advisor and mentor for undergraduates and who has had a significant impact on their personal lives and academic success." The award was presented at the 2018 Awards Convocation Thursday, May 10 in the Samberg Center. Congratulations Gigliola! • April 3: MIT Math Ranks Highly in QS World, U.S News #### MIT Math Ranks Highly in QS World, U.S News The Mathematics Department ranked first in the QS World University Rankings for 2018. ( MIT also received a number 1 ranking in 11 other subject areas.) Quacquarelli Symonds Limited subject rankings, published annually, are designed to help prospective students find the leading schools in their field of interest. Rankings cover 48 disciplines and are based on an institute’s research quality and accomplishments, academic reputation, and graduate employment. The Department’s PhD program tied with Harvard, Stanford and U.C. Berkeley for a No. 2 spot (following Princeton at No. 1) in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2018 rankings. U.S. News last ranked the nation’s top PhD programs in the sciences in 2014, when mathematics tied with Princeton University for the No. 1 spot. • April 3: Chord Sculpture Recognized for Innovative Design #### Chord Sculpture Recognized for Innovative Design Chord , Antony Gormley’s 3D steel sculpture in the Simons Building, has received an award for fabrication and installation from the American Institute of Steel Construction. Projects such as Chord selected for recognition will be announced at the 2018 NASCC: The Steel Conference in Baltimore on April 11. Awards will be presented to the submitting firms and their project team at the individual project sites in the spring and summer of 2018. And winning projects will be featured in the May issue of Modern Steel Construction magazine. Sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction, the Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (IDEAS2) “recognizes projects where structural steel has been utilized in an innovative manner.” The sculpture was installed on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the building, as a percent-for-art project in association with the Simons renovations. • March 29: Tom Leighton wins 2018 Marconi Prize #### Tom Leighton wins 2018 Marconi Prize Professor Tom Leighton has been selected to receive the 2018 Marconi Prize. The Marconi Society, dedicated to furthering scientific achievements in communications and the Internet, is honoring Leighton for his fundamental contributions to technology and the establishment of the content delivery network (CDN) industry. Leighton ’81, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and a member of CSAIL, will be awarded at The Marconi Society’s annual awards dinner in Bologna, Italy, on Oct. 2. “Being recognized by the Marconi Society is an incredible honor,” said Leighton. “It’s an honor not just for me, but also for Danny Lewin, who created this company with me, and for all of the people at Akamai who have worked so hard for over two decades to make this technology real so that the internet can scale to be a secure and affordable platform where entertainment, business, and life are enabled to reach unimagined potential." Congratulations Tom! Read more in the MIT News . • March 8: Ankur Moitra Receives Young Investigator Award #### Ankur Moitra Receives Young Investigator Award Congratulations to Ankur Moitra for receiving the 2018 Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for his proposed research "An Algorithmic Theory of Robustness." His research falls under ONR's Mathematical Data Science program . Ankur was one of 31 scientists "awarded for research that holds strong promise across a wide range of naval-relevant science and technology areas." The list of recipients is available from the ONR, and details about the program can be found on the ONR Website . Congratulations Ankur! • February 28: Alexei Borodin Receives Inaugural Alexanderson Award #### Alexei Borodin Receives Inaugural Alexanderson Award Alexei Borodin , jointly with Ivan Corwin and Patrik Ferrari, received the inaugural Alexanderson Award for their article "Free energy fluctuations for directed polymers in random media in 1+1 dimensions," Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, 67 (2014). This work began during the October 2011 AIM workshop "The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation and universality class." The American Institute of Mathematics' award is given in honor of Gerald Alexanderson, Professor of Mathematics at Santa Clara University and founding chair of the AIM Board of Trustees. The Alexanderson Award recognizes outstanding research articles arising from AIM research activities that have been published within the past three years. Congratulations Alexei! • February 26: Yufei Zhao Receives Dénes König Prize #### Yufei Zhao Receives Dénes König Prize Congratulations to Assistant Professor Yufei Zhao , SB '10, PhD '15, who is the 2018 recipient of the Dénes König Prize. His award is based on the paper he co-authored with David Conlon and Jacob Fox, "A relative Szemerédi theorem," published in Geometric and Functional Analysis 25 (2015). This paper was completed during his PhD at MIT. The König Prize will be awarded at the SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics , to be held June 4-8 at the University of Colorado, in Denver, Colorado. The SIAM Activity Group on Discrete Mathematics (SIAG/DM) Dénes König Prize is awarded biennially to an early career researcher or early career researchers for outstanding research in an area of discrete mathematics, based on a publication in the three calendar years prior to the year of the award. Congratulations Yufei! • February 22: MIT Team Wins Putnam, Five Named Putnam Fellows #### MIT Team Wins Putnam, Five Named Putnam Fellows The results of the 78th annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition: Our 1st Place Team: Allen Liu, Sammy Luo, and Yunkun Zhou. Our Putnam Fellows: Omer Cerrahoglu, Jiyang Gao, Junyao Peng, Ashwin Sah, and Yunkun Zhou. MIT students were among 4,638 test-takers from 575 institutions last December, and once again produced the highest number of top individual scorers. In addition to having the 1st place team and 5 out of the 6 highest ranking individuals named Putnam Fellows, MIT had 5 of the next 9 top scorers, and 7 of the next 10. In addition, 21 out of 74 students who received honorable mention were from MIT. In total, 38 out of 100 top scorers are MIT students. This is our fourth time in the past five years that the MIT team ranked first. Congratulations! • February 17: Andrei Neguț and Tristan Collins Receive Sloan Fellowship #### Andrei Neguț and Tristan Collins Receive Sloan Fellowship Congratulations to Andrei Neguț and Tristan Collins , who were among those awarded a 2018 Sloan Research Fellowship. Andrei has been an assistant professor with us since 2015, and Tristan will be joining us as assistant professor this fall. Andrei was among eight MIT researchers from six departments who were awarded 2018 Sloan Research Fellowships . The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded 126 American and Canadian researchers fellowships that are given to early-career scientists and scholars identified as rising stars among the next generation of scientific leaders. Fellows receive$65,000 to be used to further their research.

Congratulations Andrei and Tristan!

• January 18: James Munkres Named AMS Fellow

#### James Munkres Named AMS Fellow

Congratulations to Professor Emeritus James R. Munkres , who was named a Fellow by the American Mathematical Society. He was honored for contributions to algebraic topology, and for exposition.

Congratulations James!

• January 17: Michael Sipser Named ACM Fellow

#### Michael Sipser Named ACM Fellow

School of Science Dean Michael Sipser was among four MIT faculty named Association for Computer Machinery 2017 Fellows for making “landmark contributions to computing.”

Sipser has made numerous contributions to complexity theory, and in particular on circuit complexity, multi-interactive proof systems, the use of expanders, and quantum computing.

He will be recognized at the ACM’s annual awards banquet June 23, 2018, in San Francisco, California.

A member of CSAIL and the Donner Professor of Mathematics, Mike received the MIT Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellowship in 2016 in recognition of his commitment to undergraduate education. He also received the Irwin Sizer Award from the MIT Graduate School Council for the development with Professor Tom Leighton of the 18C major Mathematics with Computer Science. Mike is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Mathematical Society.

Congratulations Mike!

• January 17: Lucas Mason-Brown Hosts Anti-Discrimination Conference

#### Lucas Mason-Brown Hosts Anti-Discrimination Conference

Calculating the cost of tech-fueled discrimination, MIT mathematics graduate student Lucas Mason-Brown’s Data for Black Lives conference provided numbers behind the technologies that enable exclusion.

• January 17: PRIMES Students Franklyn Wang, Swapnil Garg, and Anlin Zhang Awarded at Siemens finals

#### PRIMES Students Franklyn Wang, Swapnil Garg, and Anlin Zhang Awarded at Siemens finals

MIT PRIMES program participant Franklyn Wang took second place at the final 2017 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology on Dec. 5. Franklyn, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, is part of the MIT PRIMES-USA distance mentoring math research program, in which high school students complete a challenging math research project over 12 months. His $50,000 award was for solving a longstanding mathematical problem that has a wide range of potential applications. PRIMES students Swapnil Garg and his team and Anlin Zhang and her team were also finalists and earned$25,000 scholarships at the National Finals, which were held at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., December 1-­5, 2017.

This year, PRIMES has collected 28 Siemens Competition awards : 21 semifinalists, 4 regional finalists, and 3 national finalists (including the second place winner).

For the full list of PRIMES honors and awards, please visit the PRIMES web page .

Congratulations to Franklyn, Swapnil, and Anlin!

### 2017

• December 11: Zhenkun Li, Gwen McKinley, and Ao Sun Named Lusztig Mentors

#### Zhenkun Li, Gwen McKinley, and Ao Sun Named Lusztig Mentors

For the upcoming year, Zhenkun Li , Gwen McKinley , and Ao Sun have been selected as 2018 George Lusztig PRIMES mentors .

Zhenkun has served as a PRIMES , RSI , and DRP mentor since 2016. His RSI 2016 student Dona-Maria Ivanova won the Fourth Award in Math at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2017. Gwen was the √mathroots program director from 2016 to 2017, and in 2017 she was honored as one of MIT's Graduate Women of Excellence . Ao has served as a PRIMES, RSI, and DRP mentor since 2016.

Professor George Lusztig used a significant part of his 2014 Shaw Prize in mathematics to help endow the PRIMES mentorships, which recognize math doctoral candidates who offer exceptional mentoring to high school students involved in the PRIMES program.

Congratulations to Zhenkun, Gwen, and Ao, and thank you George for making the Lusztig mentorship possible!

• December 6: Alan Edelman Named IEEE Fellow

#### Alan Edelman Named IEEE Fellow

Alan Edelman PhD ’89, an Applied Mathematics professor in the Department of Mathematics at MIT, has been named a 2018 Fellow of the IEEE for his "contributions to the development of technical-computing languages," namely the Julia language for numerical/scientific computing.

“It is a great pleasure for me to see the Julia project being recognized. For me, this is about the thousands of contributors,” Edelman said. “Often software is not recognized in academic environments as research, but this is clearly changing.”

Julia is widely described as being the solution to “The Two Language Problem,” where a high-level language is easier to use, but is not suitable for “real world” use—people needed to prototype in one language, but then need to translate to another language for performance in serial, in parallel, or on GPUs. Created with Jeff Bezanson PhD ’15, Stefan Karpinski, and Viral Shah, Julia is now used worldwide in businesses, classes, and in research.

The next JuliaCon will be Aug. 7-11, 2018, in London. Edelman has served as executive chair for JuliaCon from 2015-2017, and remains on the committee.

Congratulations Alan!

• December 4: Wei Zhang and Zhiwei Yun Awarded 2018 New Horizons in Mathematics Breakthrough Prize

#### Wei Zhang and Zhiwei Yun Awarded 2018 New Horizons in Mathematics Breakthrough Prize

Professors Wei Zhang and Zhiwei Yun have been awarded the New Horizons in Mathematics Breakthrough Prize, which is given to promising junior researchers who have already produced important work in mathematics. The team of Wei and Zhiwei were recognized Sunday “for deep work on the global Gan-Gross-Prasad conjecture and their discovery of geometric interpretations for the higher derivatives of L-functions in the function field case.” Zhiwei, currently a professor at Yale University, will be joining the Department of Mathematics next month. “I am delighted that the joint work of these two recently hired faculty members is being recognized by this prestigious award,” said Interim Department Head Michel Goemans, who attended the ceremony. “Their work on the Taylor expansion of L-functions constitutes the most important progress in 30 years towards the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, one of the seven Clay Millenium problems.”

Applied Mathematics doctoral candidate and former NFL player John Urschel was a presenter at the ceremony, which was held at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

Larry Guth won the 2016 New Horizons in Mathematics prize for “ingenious and surprising solutions to longstanding open problems in symplectic geometry, Riemannian geometry, harmonic analysis, and combinatorial geometry.”

• November 30: Henry Cohn Receives Conant Prize

#### Henry Cohn Receives Conant Prize

Adjunct Professor Henry Cohn received the 2018 Levi L. Conant Prize from the American Mathematical Society at the Joint Math Meeting for his article "A Conceptual Breakthrough in Sphere Packing," published in the February 2017 issue of the Notices of the AMS. Henry is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research New England, and his research interests include discrete mathematics, broadly interpreted. Professor David Vogan received the Levi L. Conant Prize in 2011.

“It's a pleasure and an honor to receive the 2018 Levi L. Conant Prize,” said Henry. “The /E/_8 and Leech lattices are fascinating objects, and I hope readers will grow to love them as much as I do.”

Describing Henry’s award, the AMS announcement stated: “In 2016, Maryna Viazovska gave an astounding solution to the sphere packing problem in dimension 8. Just a week later, (Abhinav) Kumar, (Stephen D.) Miller, (Danylo) Radchenko, and Viazovska solved the sphere packing problem in dimension 24 by similar ideas. Cohn's article unfolds the dramatic story behind these proofs. What is special about 8 and 24 that makes the proof work only in these dimensions? The answer is that there are truly extraordinary sphere packings in these dimensions, arising from the /E/_8 lattice in dimension 8 that appears in Lie theory, and the Leech lattice in dimension 24 that is so closely connected with finite simple sporadic groups.”

Congratulations, Henry!

• November 29: John Urschel Will Be Presenter at Dec. 3 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony

#### John Urschel Will Be Presenter at Dec. 3 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony

Applied Mathematics doctoral candidate and former NFL player John Urschel will be a presenter at the sixth annual Breakthrough Prize ceremony on Sunday, Dec. 3.

"I think I'm more honored than anything to be thought of as someone who should present such an award," said Urschel.

The Breakthrough honors top achievements in the fields of mathematics, fundamental physics, and life sciences. Larry Guth won the 2016 New Horizons in Mathematics prize for "ingenious and surprising solutions to longstanding open problems in symplectic geometry, Riemannian geometry, harmonic analysis, and combinatorial geometry."

Held at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, the event will be livestreamed at 10pm(EST)/7pm(PST) on Breakthrough Facebook , Breakthrough YouTube , National Geographic Facebook and National Geographic YouTube .

Urschel’s fellow presenters will be actors Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, and Kerry Washington, and the event will be hosted by actor Morgan Freeman . The Breakthrough Prize is presented by founders Sergey Brin (Google), Yuri Milner (DST Global) and Julia Milner, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Priscilla Chan (Chan Zuckerberg Initiatives), and Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), along with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.

• November 27: A Mathematician Who Dances to the Joys and Sorrows of Discovery

#### A Mathematician Who Dances to the Joys and Sorrows of Discovery

Federico Ardila (SB '98, PhD '03), a math professor at San Francisco State University, opens up to Quanta magazine about his journey as a mathematician, teacher, Colombian transplant, DJ, and creator of mathematical spaces.

“Had I known what MIT was, I should have known not to apply. There is no way I should have applied with that kind of transcript…I like telling this story to my students because I think we often close doors to ourselves by thinking that we’re not eligible or that we’re not good enough. And especially if you’re somebody who feels ‘othered’ in your discipline or who feels like you’re lacking confidence, it’s easy to close doors on yourself. There’s a lot of people in life who are ready to close doors for you, so you can’t do it for yourself.”

• November 22: John Bush's study explains how droplets "levitate" on liquid surfaces

#### John Bush's study explains how droplets "levitate" on liquid surfaces

A drop or two of cold cream in hot coffee can go a long way toward improving one’s morning. But what if the two liquids didn’t mix? MIT scientists have now explained why under certain conditions a droplet of liquid should not coalesce with the liquid surface below. If the droplet is very cold, and the bath sufficiently hot, then the droplet should “levitate” on the bath’s surface, as a result of the flows induced by the temperature difference.

Professor John Bush is a member of the team, whose results, published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics , offer a detailed, mathematical understanding of drop coalescence, which can be observed in everyday phenomena, from milk poured in coffee to raindrops skittering across puddles, and sprays created in surf zones.

Watch the Video

• November 14: Giulia Saccà Receives Molteni Award

Assistant Professor Giulia Saccà received the Anna Maria Molteni Award in Mathematics and Physics for her research on hyper-Kähler geometries. She was among five young Italian researchers working in North America who received 2017 ISSNAF Awards on November 8 at the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C. ISSNAF (Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation) acknowledges young Italian researchers by presenting the ISSNAF Awards for Young Investigators in five subjects and awarding the winner in each category with a $3,000 prize. Congratulations Giulia! Read more about the award on our Women in Mathematics page . • November 2: PRIMES Students Franklyn Wang, Swapnil Garg, and Anlin Zhang Advance in Siemens Competition #### PRIMES Students Franklyn Wang, Swapnil Garg, and Anlin Zhang Advance in Siemens Competition The MIT PRIMES program has three students among the national finalists in the 2017 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. The finalists are PRIMES students Swapnil Garg and his team; Anlin Zhang and her team; and Franklyn Wang (in the individual category). The Regional Finals were held at MIT along with five other schools earlier this month. Winners of the regional events will advance to the National Finals to be held at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., December 4-­5, 2017. So far, PRIMES student contestants took home 28 Siemens Competition awards this year, consisting of 21 semifinalists, 4 regional finalists and 3 national finalists. PRIMES/RSI/SPUR Director Slava Gerovitch congratulated PRIMES chief research advisor Pavel Etingof , head mentor Tanya Khovanova , and the MIT mentors Jesse Freeman , Chiheon Kim , Younhun Kim , Xiaomeng Xu , and Lusztig PRIMES mentor Guangyi Yue for their dedication and hard work. For the full list of PRIMES honors and awards, please visit the PRIMES web page. • November 2: 27 PRIMES Contestants Take Home Siemens Competition Awards #### 27 PRIMES Contestants Take Home Siemens Competition Awards This year’s MIT PRIMES contestants took home more than twice as many awards than last year as they made it past the first round of the 2017 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. With 20 semifinalists and 7 regional finalists, PRIMES student contestants took home 27 Siemens Competition awards this year, compared with 12 in 2016 and in 2015. They were chosen from a pool of more than 1,860 projects submitted this year. The 101 regional finalists will now advance to the next round of the competition – the Regional Finals, in one of six regional competitions virtually hosted over three consecutive weekends in November at MIT November 3-4, along with five other schools. PRIMES/RSI/SPUR Director Slava Gerovitch congratulated PRIMES chief research advisor Pavel Etingof , head mentor Tanya Khovanova , and the MIT mentors Jesse Freeman , Chiheon Kim , Younhun Kim , Xiaomeng Xu , and Lusztig PRIMES mentor Guangyi Yue for their dedication and hard work. For the full list of PRIMES honors and awards, please visit the PRIMES web page. • October 26: Hilary Finucane Receives NIH Award #### Hilary Finucane Receives NIH Award Broad Institute Fellow Hilary Finucane PhD ’17 received the Early Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health. In June 2017, she completed her PhD in applied math; her research was in statistical genetics, and she was advised by Alkes Price . Hilary also recently contributed to “Association analysis identifies 65 new breast cancer risk loci” in Advance Online Publication (AOP) on www.nature.com . Read more about Hilary on our Women in Mathematics page . • October 23: 2017 Math Prize for Girls #### 2017 Math Prize for Girls Congratulations to the winners of the 9th annual Math Prize for Girls contest, which took place on Saturday, September 24, 2017 at MIT. The competition drew 266 girls from across the US and Canada to compete for$55,000 in cash prizes. Gigliola Staffilani and School of Science Dean Michael Sipser are among the board of advisors for this event, which is held by Advantage Testing Foundation.

Read more about the competition on our Women in Mathematics page .

• October 4: Minicozzi, Sheffield, and Pixton awarded chairs

#### Minicozzi, Sheffield, and Pixton awarded chairs

Bill Minicozzi and Scott Sheffield have been awarded senior faculty chairs, and Aaron Pixton has received a Career Development chair, as of this past July 1.

Bill Minicozzi now holds the Singer Professorship in Mathematics, a chair that was recently held by Tom Mrowka , and previously by Dan Stroock . This was established by the James and Marilyn Simons Professorship Fund in 1999, in honor of Institute Professor and Abel Prize winner Isadore Singer . Formerly named the Simons Distinguished Professorship of Mathematics until Professor Singer’s retirement, it was renamed in 2010.

Scott Sheffield has been awarded the Leighton Family Professorship in Mathematics, a chair previously held by Michel Goemans . The chair was established in 2007 by the Leighton Family Fund.

Both chairs are for five years, renewable once.

Aaron Pixton has received the Class of 1957 Career Development chair for a three-year term. This is an Institute chair for a junior faculty member.

Congratulations Bill, Scott, and Aaron!

• October 3: Math Dept Welcomes Four Professors

#### Math Dept Welcomes Four Professors

The Department of Mathematics welcomes this year two new senior faculty members, Wei Zhang and Zhiwei Yun, and two junior faculty members, Giulia Saccà and Yufei Zhao .

Wei Zhang is a number theorist who works in arithmetic geometry. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2009 under Shouwu Zhang, took a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard, and was a professor at Columbia University. He is the recipient of the 2010 SASTRA Ramanujan prize. Together, Zhiwei Yun and Wei Zhang have made some exciting progress toward the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture in number theory, by characterizing higher derivatives of L-functions in the number field case.

Zhiwei Yun’s work is in representation theory, number theory, and algebraic geometry, and specifically the Langlands program. He received his PhD from Princeton University under Bob MacPherson in 2009, was a CLE Moore Instructor at MIT, and held faculty positions at Stanford and Yale. He is a Packard Fellow and received the 2012 SASTRA Ramanujan prize. He will start at MIT in the spring.

Giulia Saccà is an algebraic geometer. She received her PhD from Princeton University under Gang Tian in 2013, and has held positions at the Institute for Advanced Study and at Stony Brook University. Giulia is currently teaching 18.725, Algebraic Geometry.

Yufei Zhao works in extremal, probabilistic, and additive combinatorics. He received his MIT PhD under Jacob Fox in 2015, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford. Yufei is currently teaching the Putnam seminar 18.A34 and Graph Theory and Additive Combinatorics, 18.S997.

Welcome!

• September 28: Chenyang Xu Awarded Future Science Prize

#### Chenyang Xu Awarded Future Science Prize

Chenyang Xu , an algebraic geometer who will join our Department as Full Professor in Fall 2018, received the 2017 Future Science Prize in Mathematics & Computer Science at a ceremony in Beijing on October 29, 2017. He was recognized for his contributions to birational algebraic geometry.

The purpose of the Future Science Prize is to reward scientists that have made outstanding contributions to science and technology in Greater China. It is referred to as China's new Nobel Prize. This non-governmental prize was established last year in Life Science and in Physical Science, but Chenyang wins the inaugural Future Prize in Mathematics & Computer Science.

Congratulations, Chenyang!

• September 7: PRIMES student Felix Wang Named Davidson Fellow

PRIMES student Felix Wang, 18, of Newton, has been chosen as a 2017 Davidson Fellow with a $25,000 scholarship award for his paper, "Functional equations in Complex Analysis and Number Theory." He is one of only 20 students across the country to receive this honor. Felix, a rising college freshman at Stanford University and graduate of Roxbury Latin in West Roxbury, thanked his PRIMES mentors Pavel Etingof and Tanya Khovanova , along with grad student Thao Do and University of Michigan Professor Michael Zieve. "Both mentors provided tremendous assistance, and have always inspired and motivated me," Felix said. “I am unbelievably excited and honored to be a Davidson Fellow,” said Wang. “Mathematics has fascinated me since childhood. In middle school, I spent countless hours poring over textbooks in preparation for various math competitions, but by the time I reached high school, my interest in learning math to win competitions had faded. I searched for a more challenging and more fulfilling way to use my talents, and decided to attempt mathematics research.” He credits PRIMES as the program that fulfilled his need for a challenge. Congratulations PRIMES and Felix! • August 31: ICM 2018 Speakers Include Tom Mrowka, Bjorn Poonen, Alex Postnikov, Chenyang Xu, Zhiwei Yun, and Wei Zhang #### ICM 2018 Speakers Include Tom Mrowka, Bjorn Poonen, Alex Postnikov, Chenyang Xu, Zhiwei Yun, and Wei Zhang Tom Mrowka will deliver a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians 2018, which will be held August 1-9, 2018, in Rio de Janeiro. Other MIT math faculty invited to speak at ICM 2018 include Bjorn Poonen and our new full professor Wei Zhang in the Number Theory section; new professors Zhiwei Yun and Chenyang Xu in the Algebraic and Complex Geometry section; and Alex Postnikov in the Combinatorics section. Meeting every four years, ICM is where the Fields medals are awarded. • August 16: Scott Sheffield Wins Clay Research Award #### Scott Sheffield Wins Clay Research Award The Clay Mathematics Institute presented Jason Miller and Scott Sheffield with the 2017 Clay Research Award , for their groundbreaking and conceptually novel work on the geometry of the Gaussian free field and its application to the solution of open problems in the theory of two-dimensional random structures. The award is "in recognition of their introduction of a novel geometric combinatorial method to study doubling properties of solutions to elliptic eigenvalue problems” ( full citation ). Scott Sheffield holds the Leighton Family Chair in Mathematics at MIT since July 2017. Jason Miller is at the University of Cambridge, and was a Schramm Fellow and an NSF Fellow at MIT under Scott’s mentorship. For those who missed it, Quanta magazine recently wrote about their research in “ A Unified Theory of Randomness .” • August 15: Daniel Freedman's Work on Neutrino Scattering is Confirmed 40 Years Later #### Daniel Freedman's Work on Neutrino Scattering is Confirmed 40 Years Later Before his arrival at MIT, Daniel Freedman wrote "Coherent Effects of a Weak Neutral Current," which appeared in the 1974 issue of Physical Review . His paper proposed the process called coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, specifically pointing out that it had a much larger strength than other neutrino reactions. Dan, a theoretical physicist emeritus in the Applied Mathematics division, recently received a pleasant surprise—more than 40 years later. “I received a message from the head of an experimental collaboration of about 80 physicists telling me that the experiment had finally been realized and confirmed my prediction.” The results of their research were detailed in an article in the latest SCIENCE magazine, “Milk jug–sized detector captures neutrinos in a whole new way.” In the article, the team describes using a device the size of a milk jug in order to observe the neutrinos scattering off atomic nuclei. This development may lead to portable neutrino detectors at nuclear facilities. • August 9: Peter Shor Awarded 2017 Dirac Medal #### Peter Shor Awarded 2017 Dirac Medal Peter Shor received the 2017 Dirac Medal from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, along with Charles Bennett of IBM and David Deutsch of Oxford. Peter was recognized for his groundbreaking work in quantum computation, including his quantum factoring algorithm, quantum error-correcting codes, and quantum fault-tolerant computation. The award was announced on August 8, the 115th anniversary of Paul Dirac ’s birth. Earlier recipients of the medal include Emeritus Professor Dan Freedman and several MIT physicists. Congratulations Peter! • August 7: 2017 Rogers Prize Split by Two Teams #### 2017 Rogers Prize Split by Two Teams The 2017 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper was awarded to two teams, to be split evenly, as decided by the faculty committee ( Andrew Lawrie , George Lusztig , and Elchanan Mossel ). Justin Lim and his mentor Frederic Koehler were awarded for their “elegant analysis and presentation of spanning Maker-Breaker games.” The project, “Building Forests in Maker-Breaker Games: Upper and Lower Bounds,” was suggested by Asaf Ferber . Jianqiao Xia and his mentor Gus Lonergan were awarded for a “penetrating study of the intersection pattern of irreducible components of Springer fibers coming from two-row partitions.” The project, “Topology of Two-Row Type Springer Fibers,” was suggested by Roman Bezrukavnikov . Congratulations to all of the students, mentors, and faculty who provided projects , and thanks to all mentors, SPUR faculty advisors David Jerison and Ankur Moitra , SPUR+ coordinator Cris Negron , and the program director, Slava Gerovitch , along with the Rogers family for their support of this program. • August 2: SPUR/RSI Lecture Series Wraps up with Conference Aug. 4 #### SPUR/RSI Lecture Series Wraps up with Conference Aug. 4 To a packed classroom, Prof. John Bush kicked off the summer SPUR/RSI lecture series with his lecture "Hydrodynamic Quantum Analogs." Led by SPUR/RSI faculty advisors David Jerison and Ankur Moitra, the afternoon series concludes with the SPUR Program Conference , featuring presentations by 13 undergraduates. Students in the program work full time for six weeks on original individual or joint research projects, as mentored by a math grad student, and at the conference, the undergraduates present their papers to mentors, peers, and a panel of faculty members. • July 17: Lucas Mason-Brown Named 2017 Echoing Green Fellow #### Lucas Mason-Brown Named 2017 Echoing Green Fellow Math grad student Lucas Mason-Brown has been named one of 35 Echoing Green Fellows for his work with Data for Black Lives (D4BL), an organization he recently co-founded to mobilize scientists to use data science to fight racial bias in real estate, finance, criminal justice, and other areas. Congratulations Lucas! Read more at the MIT News • July 12: Alum Mitch Rothstein Returns to MIT to Claim Throne #### Alum Mitch Rothstein Returns to MIT to Claim Throne Mitch Rothstein ’77 played the title character in the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble production of King John. “I know of no other example of a college repertory company mounting a production with both current students and 40 years of alumni,” said Mitch, now a math professor at the University of Georgia and one of the ensemble’s first actors. The cast and crew included four current students and 19 alumni that have graduated as far back as 1974. Read more at The Slice • July 10: Allan Gottlieb '67, Returns for 50th Reunion, and Profiled for His Work as the Puzzle Keeper #### Allan Gottlieb '67, Returns for 50th Reunion, and Profiled for His Work as the Puzzle Keeper Allan Gottlieb ’67, a pioneer in parallel computing and New York University professor, recently celebrated his 50th reunion this week at MIT. But since he was a junior in the math department he’s been creating The Puzzle Corner, a math and puzzle column that still appears in MIT Technology Review magazine. Gottlieb, who was profiled by Tech Review in 2015 , spoke to Slice of MIT about the evolution of the Puzzle Corner. Read more at the MIT News • July 7: Profile of a Math Senior: Raul Boquin #### Profile of a Math Senior: Raul Boquin MIT Senior Raul Boquin remembers the assignment from his freshman year as if it were yesterday. During a leadership workshop, he was asked to write a headline for a newspaper in his imagined future. The words that came to mind resonated so strongly that they now hang on the walls of his dorm room: “Equal opportunities in education for all.” Read more at the MIT News • July 5: The Double Life of Doctoral Candidate and NFL Pro John Urschel #### The Double Life of Doctoral Candidate and NFL Pro John Urschel In the United States, the set of professional football players has about 1,700 members, and set the PhD candidates in math also has thousands of members. In 2017, the intersection of these sets is a singleton. On an overcast day in late winter, that unique element is in the Norbert Wiener Common Room in MIT’s Department of Mathematics, where John Urschel is sitting at a table, chatting. Urschel is an offensive lineman with the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, a three-year pro with 40 regular-season games played and a couple of playoff starts on his football résumé. He is also a doctoral candidate in math at MIT who has passed his qualifying exams and has nine published or accepted research papers on his academic résumé. Read more at Technology Review Urschel recently announced his retirement from his football career, and will concentrate full-time on earning his PhD. His announcement came days after the release of a Boston University study showing the link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease. • June 29: Welcome New Graduate Students! #### Welcome New Graduate Students! We are welcoming 19 new students into our graduate program. Coming from around the world, 4 are from China, 3 from Russia, 2 from Hong Kong; and others are from Thailand, Singapore, Romania, Great Britain and Colombia. Thirteen are pure math, and six are applied math. Four are women. Four from MIT are Robert Burklund, algebraic topology; Tudor Cristea-Platon, physical applied math; and two combinatorics students, Yibo Gao and Jonathan Tidor. Three are from Harvard: Sahana Vasudevan, general pure math; Gregory Parker, geometry; and Pakawut Jiradilok, combinatorics. Three are from the Higher School of Economics in Russia: Daniil Kalinov, general math; Andrei Ionov, algebra; and Aleksandra Utilarova, lie algebra. And two are from University of Cambridge: Dominic Skinner, physical applied math, and Chun Hong Lo, algebra. Other new students are: • Jie Jun Ang, probability, Stanford • Araminta Gwynne, general pure math, Northwestern • Kai Huang, geometry, Peking University • Chenyang Shao, analysis, Tsinghua University • Felipe Suarez, science, University de los Andes • Jingwei Xiao, number theory, Columbia • Ruoxuan Yang, analysis, University of Hong Kong Please help us welcome them to the Department of Mathematics! • June 27: Our Spring 2017 Newsletter Integral is Now Available • June 26: Hung Cheng Receives Distinguished Achievement Award in Technology and Launches Scholarship Fund #### Hung Cheng Receives Distinguished Achievement Award in Technology and Launches Scholarship Fund Hung Cheng received the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award in Technology and Humanity/Humanities, by the Chinese Institute of Engineers, San Francisco Bay Chapter. Cheng and his wife, Jill, also pledged$1 million last fall to the Hung and Jill Cheng Scholarship Fund, to support MIT undergraduates. Cheng was inspired to establish the scholarship through writing his novel, "Nanjing Never Cries."

Congratulations Hung!

• June 14: Grad Student Xin Sun Assists Physics Team with Photonic Tech Project to Aid Artificial Neural Networks

#### Grad Student Xin Sun Assists Physics Team with Photonic Tech Project to Aid Artificial Neural Networks

Xin Sun , as a 5th year Ph.D. student in mathematics, was part of a team of researchers at MIT and elsewhere that has developed a new approach to such computations, using light instead of electricity, which they say could vastly improve the speed and efficiency of certain deep learning computations. Their results appeared recently in the journal Nature Photonics . “Deep Learning” computer systems are based on artificial neural networks that mimic the way the brain learns from an accumulation of examples. These systems enable technologies such as face- and voice-recognition software, and could search through medical data to find patterns for diagnostic use, or scan chemical formulas for possible new pharmaceuticals.

Sun, whose advisor was Scott Sheffield, studies probability theory and mathematical physics; he has done research on random planar geometry, including SLE, Gaussian free field, random planar maps and Liouville quantum gravity. He was recruited to this photonics project by his friend, physics post-doc Yichen Shen, one of the first two authors of the article, and part of a team scattered around the world.

“The team in the physics department was trying to use optical device to realize mathematical operations involved in the deep learning algorithm, which are matrix multiplication and nonlinear function,” he explained. “One problem they encountered is to represent every matrix by 2 by 2 unitary matrices with other simple operations that can be easily realized by an optical device.” Together with Yichen Shen , he found what he explained "an economic way with respect to the optical device."

A recent graduate, Xin will go in July to Columbia University as a Simons Junior Fellow He received his B.S. in mathematics from Peking University.

Congratulations Xin Sun!

• June 9: Sylvain Carpentier Not Only Received his PhD in Mathematics at Commencement on June 9, but Performed That Night with the Boston Pops.

#### Sylvain Carpentier Not Only Received his PhD in Mathematics at Commencement on June 9, but Performed That Night with the Boston Pops.

Sylvain was the featured soloist with the Pops at Symphony Hall during Tech Night at the Pops, a 120-year Commencement tradition hosted by MIT for alumni and guests. He was the first MIT PhD in Tech Night history to be a soloist.

With the Pops, he performed Frédéric Chopin’s solo piano work, Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante, Opus 22, and received a standing ovation.

Bravo, Sylvain!

• June 7: Congratulations To Our New PhDs in Mathematics!

#### Congratulations To Our New PhDs in Mathematics!

• June 6: Jerison, Staffiliani, French and Chu win Prize for Teaching and Learning in MOOCs

#### Jerison, Staffiliani, French and Chu win Prize for Teaching and Learning in MOOCs

David Jerison , Gigliola Staffiliani , Jennifer French , and Karene Chu are one of three winning groups of co-instructors honored by MIT’s Office of Digital Learning for its inaugural MITx Prize for Teaching and Learning in MOOCs (massive open online courses). They were honored for their significant contributions to MITx MOOC coursework offered on edX.org during the 2016 calendar year. The MITx Prize for Teaching and Learning recognizes educators who have devoted themselves to better engaging learners around the world through digital classrooms.

As part of their 18.01x Calculus Series, the team introduced a new sketch input tool and live-action videos while demonstrating what the review panel described as an “incredible level of commitment to course development and creating the best possible product.” The team drew content from Jerison’s 18.01 (Single Variable Calculus) course to serve as the base curriculum for 18.01x, then designed and built a highly interactive learning experience involving video, problems, text, and images.

At the May 19 MITx Significant Interest Group event, the team received a plaque, shared a $1,000 prize for an account of the faculty’s or department’s choosing, and will be MITx’s nominees for the edX Prize. Congratulations David, Gigliola, Jennifer and Karene! • May 26: Sylvain Carpentier is Awarded the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize #### Sylvain Carpentier is Awarded the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize Graduate student Sylvain Carpentier has been awarded the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize. This award is presented to a current MIT graduate student in the Department of Mathematics for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal. Sylvain received the prize for his paper "A sufficient condition for a rational differential operator to generate an integrable system" in the Japanese Journal of Mathemtics , March 2017 issue (Vol. 12, no. 1). Congratulations Sylvain! • May 26: Gus Lonergan, Jonasz Slomka and Lucas Tambasco are Awarded Charles and Holly Housman Teaching Awards #### Gus Lonergan, Jonasz Slomka and Lucas Tambasco are Awarded Charles and Holly Housman Teaching Awards Graduate students Gus Lonergan , Jonasz Slomka and Lucas Tambasco have each been awarded the Charles and Holly Housman Award for excellence in teaching. This award is presented to graduate students in Mathematics for skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching. ## Congratulations Gus, Jonasz, and Lucas! • May 26: Yibo Gao Receives Jon A. Bucsela Prize #### Yibo Gao Receives Jon A. Bucsela Prize Yibo Gao has received the 2017 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics. ## Congratulations Yibo! • May 11: Casals receives Caselles Award and Fellowship #### Casals receives Caselles Award and Fellowship The BBVA Foundation and the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society have awarded the Vincent Caselles Mathematical Research Award to CLE Moore Instructor Roger Casals . Among six recipients, Casals received the award for his contributions to contact topology. The Caselles Award goes to young mathematicians under 30 to boost the research of young Spanish mathematicians or those trained in Spain. Casals also received RSME's José Luis Rubio de Francia Award and the BBVA Research Fellowship, which funds a three-year research project. His research on contact and symplectic topology, flexible-rigid dichotomy and h-principles is also supported by an NSF award. ## Congratulations Roger! • May 9: Calculus Classes on edX, Rerun Starting Soon • April 20: Cesar Duarte and Becky Ecung Receive Infinite Mile Awards #### Cesar Duarte and Becky Ecung Receive Infinite Mile Awards The School of Science has selected Special Projects Assistant Cesar Duarte and Webmaster Becky Ecung to receive the Infinite Mile Award . The Infinite Mile Award recognizes those individuals who have gone above and beyond their required duties. This includes going beyond expectation in mentoring, learning and skill building, innovation, and community building. Cesar was nominated for the “Beyond Expectation Award,” for consistently going above and beyond the requirements of his job to make the Math Department a better place. Becky was nominated for the “Innovator Award,” for creating solutions to problems large and small, and finding simple solutions to the daily struggles for the department. ## Congratulations Cesar and Becky! • April 13: Scott Sheffield and Jason P. Miller Receive Clay Research Award #### Scott Sheffield and Jason P. Miller Receive Clay Research Award Professor Scott Sheffield and former Schramm and NSF fellow Jason P. Miller have won the 2017 Clay Research Award for their work on the geometry of the Gaussian free field and its application to the solution of open problems in the theory of two-dimensional random structures. Jason is now at the University of Cambridge. ## Congratulations Scott and Jason! • April 10: MIT takes 4th place in Putnam Competition #### MIT takes 4th place in Putnam Competition The MIT team of Robert C. Shen, David H. Yang, and Yunkun Zhou placed 4th this year in the 2016 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, after a three-year run of first places. Yunkun Zhou was named a Putnam Fellow, placing in the top 5. MIT has 3 students in the next 9 spots: Jiyang Gao, Allen X. Liu, and Sammy Y. Luo; 7 in the next 11 spots: Evan Chen, Andrew He, Hyun Sub Hwang, Eshaan Nichani, Mark A. Sellke, Robert C. Shen, and Lingfu Zhang; and 21 honorable mentions in the next 68: Ryan N. Alweiss, Yibo Gao, Brian H. Gu, Meghal Gupta, Brice Huang, Kritkorn Karntikoon, Samuel Korsky, Michael J. Kural, Calvin J. Lee, Justin K. Lim, Ting-Chun Lin, Yang Liu, Weerachai Neeranartvong, Sung Gi Park, Tahsin Saffat, Sean Shi, Kevin Sun, Suchan Vivatsethachai, Jianqiao Xia, David H. Yang, and Kevin Zhou. MIT earned an outstanding 32 of the top 93 spots. A Full List of the Winners ## Congratulations to the winners, and to all who took the exam! • April 7: Gigliola Staffilani Receives Guggenheim Fellowship #### Gigliola Staffilani Receives Guggenheim Fellowship Professor Gigliola Staffilani has been awarded the 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . She is among 173 who were awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in April, chosen among 3,000 applicants in the Foundation’s 93rd competition. Gigliola is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of Mathematics. ## Congratulations Gigliola! • April 4: Undergraduates Receive NSF Fellowships #### Undergraduates Receive NSF Fellowships The following undergraduate mathematics students have been awarded 2017 NSF Fellowships for Graduate Study: • Colin Aitken • Brian Axelrod • Shi-Fan Chen • Robert Jones • Saarik Kalia • Jing Li • Alexander Moss • Mark Sellke • Jonathan Tidor • Kevin Zhou The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees. ## Congratulations to our winners! • April 3: Gweneth McKinley Chosen as an Honoree Graduate Women of Excellence Celebration #### Gweneth McKinley Chosen as an Honoree Graduate Women of Excellence Celebration Doctoral student Gweneth McKinley has been chosen as an honoree in the 2017 biennial celebration of Graduate Women of Excellence. The Office of the Dean for Graduate Education’s celebration recognizes graduate women who exemplify leadership and service contributions at the Institute, and outstanding accomplishment. Gweneth and others will be recognized on April 24, where honorees will present posters on their accomplishments and future plans. ## Congratulations Gweneth! • March 28: Hertz Fellowships #### Hertz Fellowships Linus Hamilton , a first-year graduate student, and fourth-year undergraduate Ofer Grossman were among 12 to receive the Hertz Fellowship . Hamilton, from College Park, Md., is pursuing his PhD in applied mathematics. His advisor is Ankur Moitra , who also had received a Hertz Fellowship. Grossman, who will pursue his PhD in theoretical computer science, also co-won the 2015 SPUR (Summer Program in Undergraduate Research) Hartley Rogers Jr. Prize. ## Congratulations Linus and Ofer! • March 15: Simons Fellowships #### Simons Fellowships Professors Tobias Colding , Gigliola Staffilani , Tomasz Mrowka and Fall 2017 incoming professor Wei Zhang have each been awarded a 2017 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics . This award is granted to scientists with great potential for research accomplishment based on their accomplishments within the past five years. ## Congratulations Toby, Gigliola, Tom and Wei! • March 15: Regeneron Science Talent Search #### Regeneron Science Talent Search PRIMES math student Aaron Yeiser , mentored by Alex Townsend, has won the 2nd place award in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2017 (formerly Intel) for his development of a new numerical method for solving partial differential equations on complicated geometries. Laura Pierson , another PRIMES student mentored by Siddharth Venkatesh , has won the 6th place prize for her work on interpolation of the representation theory of symmetric groups. Two other PRIMES students, Alec Sun and Felix Wang were also finalists. ## Congratulations PRIMES students! • March 1: Sloan Research Fellowships #### Sloan Research Fellowships Assistant Professors Semyon Dyatlov and Aaron Pixton have each been awarded the 2017 Sloan Research Fellowships . This two-year fellowship recognizes early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise who have a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field. ## Congratulations Semyon and Aaron! • January 30: National Inventors Hall of Fame #### National Inventors Hall of Fame Professor Tom Leighton has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the Content Delivery Network methods that he invented with his graduate student Danny Lewin . Using Applied Mathematics and Algorithms, Leighton's methods allow the replication and delivery of content over a large network of distributed servers, making the Internet faster. ## Congratulations Tom! • January 27: AMS Election Results #### AMS Election Results Three of our senior faculty were elected by members of the AMS to these respective appointments and terms: • David Jerison, Vice President (Feb. 2017 - Jan. 2020) • Bjorn Poonen, Nominating Committee (Jan. 2017 - Dec. 2019) • Scott Sheffield, Editorial Boards Committee (Feb. 2017 - Jan. 2020). Congratulations to them and appreciation for their service to the Mathematics Community! • January 13: AWM Mathematics Dissertation Prize • January 10: A New edX Course #### A New edX Course ### 2016 • December 7: Morgan Prize • December 7: Siemens Competition #### Siemens Competition PRIMES students Louis Golowich and Richard Zhou , mentored by Chiheon Kim , have won the 4th Prize in the Siemens Competition ($30,000 award) for their project on the maximum number of pairwise G-different permutations.

Congratulations, Louis, Richard, and Chiheon!

• December 5: George Lusztig PRIMES Mentorships

#### George Lusztig PRIMES Mentorships

The 2017 George Lusztig PRIMES mentors are Lucas Mason-Brown , Andrew Rzeznik , and Guangyi Yue. These positions are awarded annually to continuing PRIMES mathematics mentors for exceptional mentor service in past years.

Congratulations Lucas, Andrew, and Guangyi!

• December 1: Marshall Scholar

#### Marshall Scholar

Kevin Zhou , a double major in Mathematics and Physics, has been named a 2017 Marshall Scholar . With this scholarship, Kevin will study theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge.

Congratulations Kevin!

• October 17: Gian-Carlo Rota Biographical Memoir

#### Gian-Carlo Rota Biographical Memoir

The National Academy of Sciences has released a biographical memoir of former MIT Mathematics Professor, Gian-Carlo Rota. Rota became a Professor of Mathematics in 1967 and Professor of Applied Mathematics and Philosophy in 1975. He won the Killian Faculty Achievement Award in 1996.

• October 11: Ankur Moitra, Packard Fellow

#### Ankur Moitra, Packard Fellow

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has awarded Ankur Moitra the Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, recognizing him as one in eighteen of the nation's most innovative young scientists and engineers.

Congratulations Ankur!

• September 26: Carlsberg Foundation Research Prize 2016

#### Carlsberg Foundation Research Prize 2016

Professor Tobias Colding received the Carlsberg Foundation Research Prize for ground-breaking research in differential geometry and geometric analysis. Awarded annually for over 200 years, this prize is given to researchers who have contributed significantly to basic research at a high international level.

Congratulations Toby!

• August 8: Rogers Family Prize

#### Rogers Family Prize

The 2016 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper was awarded to Lingfu Zhang and his mentor Hong Wang for the paper, "Refinements of the 2-Dimensional Strichartz Estimate using the Maximum Wave Packet" (project provided by Larry Guth ).

Congratulations Lingfu and Hong!

• August 8: José Luis Rubio de Francia Prize

#### José Luis Rubio de Francia Prize

Instructor Roger Casals has been awarded the José Luis Rubio de Francia Prize from the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society. This award recognizes and encourages the work of young researchers in mathematics.

Congratulations Roger!

• August 4: Building 2 Awards

#### Building 2 Awards

The Building 2 renovation project has received two prestigeous awards. First, the Cambridge Historical Commission celebrated the quality of historial preservation of the property by granting the project a 2015-2016 Preservation Award . Second, the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) has honored the project with a SCUP/AIA-CAE Award for "excellence in architecture for building additions or adaptive reuse."

Thank you Ann Beha Architects and other project contributors!

Building 2 Photos

• August 3: Quanta Magazine Feature

#### Quanta Magazine Feature

Quanta Magazine has featured the work of Professor Scott Sheffield for his three-paper series providing a comprehensive view of random two-dimensional surfaces.

Congratulations Scott!

• August 3: Canadian Thesis Prizes

Instructor and Postdoctoral Fellow Vincent Genest has been awarded two prizes for his Phd work, Algebraic structures, superintegrable systems and orthogonal polynomials . The Canadian Mathematical Society has presented Vincent with the 2016 Doctoral Prize , and the Canadian Association of Physicists-Division of Theoretical Physics has awarded him with the 2016 Thesis Prize .

Congratulations Vincent!

• August 2: Communications of the ACM Cover Story

#### Communications of the ACM Cover Story

Communications of the ACM , the leading print and online publication for the computing and information technology fields, has featured the work of Professor Bonnie Berger on the cover of the 2016 August issue. The article, titled Computational Biology in the 21st Century: Scaling with Compressive Algorithms , discusses how algorithmic advances take advantage of the structure of the massive biological data landscape.

Congratulations Bonnie!

• July 23: Simons Fellowship

#### Simons Fellowship

Professor Alexei Borodin has been awarded a 2016 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics . This award is granted to scientists with great potential for research accomplishment based on their accomplishments within the past five years.

Congratulations Alexei!

• July 21: Simons Professorship

#### Simons Professorship

Professor Bonnie Berger has been appointed the Simons Professor of Mathematics. Established by the James and Marilyn Simons Professorship Fund in 1996, this appointment recognizes outstanding achievements in mathematics, continued commitment to excellence in education and research, and service to the mathematics department.

Congratulations Bonnie!

• July 21: JSMF Complex Systems Scholar Award

#### JSMF Complex Systems Scholar Award

Assistant Professor Jörn Dunkel has received a 2016 Complex Systems Scholar Award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation. The JSMF Scholar Awards Program supports high quality research to further the science of complex systems. Awardees are selected by an expert advisory panel based on the importance and originality of the applicant's proposed research.

Congratulations Jörn!

• June 30: Simons Investigator

#### Simons Investigator

The Simons Foundation has awarded Professor Bjorn Poonen a Simons Investigatorship . This award is given to outstanding theoretical scientists to support long-term investigations of fundamental questions.

Congratulations Bjorn!

• June 2: New PhDs

#### New PhDs

• May 27: Rockwell International Career Assistant Professorship

#### Rockwell International Career Assistant Professorship

Ankur Moitra has been selected as the next Rockwell International Career Assistant Professor of Mathematics. This professorship recognizes and encourages excellence of the research and teaching by our gifted young faculty.

Congratulations Ankur!

• May 26: Jon A. Bucsela Prize

#### Jon A. Bucsela Prize

Yongyi Chen and Mitchell Lee each received the 2016 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics.

Congratulations Yongyi and Mitchell!

• May 26: Hertz Foundation Fellowship

#### Hertz Foundation Fellowship

Felipe Hernandez was awarded the Hertz Foundation Fellowship, given to support an outstanding student with the freedom to innovate as part of their graduate studies.

Congratulations Felipe!

• May 18: Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize

#### Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize

Graduate students Yi Sun and Yun William Yu have each been awarded the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize. This award is presented to a current MIT graduate student in the Department of Mathematics for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal. Yi Sun received the prize for his paper "Traces of Intertwiners for Quantum Affine sl2 and Felder–Varchenko Functions," and Yun William Yu for his paper "Entropy-Scaling Search of Massive Biological Data."

Congratulations Yi and Yun William!

• May 18: Charles and Holly Housman Teaching Awards

#### Charles and Holly Housman Teaching Awards

Graduate students Zachary Abel and Carlos Sauer Ayala have each been awarded the Charles and Holly Housman Award for excellence in teaching. This award is presented to graduate students in Mathematics for skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching.

Congratulations Zachary and Carlos!

• May 9: American Philosophical Society

#### American Philosophical Society

Emeritus Professor Alar Toomre has been elected to be a member of the American Philosophical Society . The APS is America's first learned society and members are elected after achieving extraordinary accomplishments in their field of intellectual endeavor.

Congratulations Alar!

• May 5: Edmund F. Kelly Research Award

#### Edmund F. Kelly Research Award

Assistant Professors Jörn Dunkel and Ankur Moitra have each been awarded an Edmund F. Kelly Research Award. This award is given to a junior faculty member “in recognition of work that applies mathematical methods to a new area or that offers a fundamentally new perspective on a classical problem.”

Congratulations Jörn and Ankur!

• May 5: Math Department Faculty Promotions

#### Math Department Faculty Promotions

The Corporation Executive Committee has approved faculty promotions for Jared Speck and Gonçalo Tabuada to Associate Professor.

Congratulations Jared and Gonçalo!

• May 1: Irwin Sizer Award and MIT Awards Convocation

#### Irwin Sizer Award and MIT Awards Convocation

The MIT Awards Convocation awarded Professor Tom Leighton and Dean Michael Sipser the Irwin Sizer Award of the Graduate School Council, for most significant improvements to MIT Education. -- in particular, for their development of the highly successful 18C major: Mathematics with Computer Science.

Congratulations Tom and Mike!

• April 28: MIT Phi Beta Kappa

#### MIT Phi Beta Kappa

The Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected 32 mathematics majors, out of 84 electees in the entire school, from the Class of 2016 to become members. Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest academic honor society with a very selective invitation process. Membership is awarded to students in recognition of excellent academic records and commitment to the objectives of a liberal education.

Congratulations Electees!

• April 20: AWM-Birman Research Prize

#### AWM-Birman Research Prize

Assistant Professor Emmy Murphy has been awarded the Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry . With this prize, the Association for Women in Mathematics recognizes Murphy's outstanding contributions to symplectic and contact topology. The official award ceremony will take place at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in January 2017.

Congratulations Emmy!

• April 20: American Academy of Arts and Sciences

#### American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor Pavel Etingof has been elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . With members including many of the most accomplished scholars and practitioners worldwide, the American Academy is one of the country's oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers.

Congratulations Pavel!

• April 5: Putnam Competition

#### Putnam Competition

Our 1st Place Team:

Mark A. Sellke, Bobby C. Shen, David H. Yang

Our Putnam Fellows:

David H. Yang and Yunkun Zhou

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize for the Top Woman Scorer:

Danielle Wang

In addition to having the 1st place team and 2 of the 6 highest ranking individuals, MIT has 4 of the next 10 top scorers, 3 of the next 10, and an outstanding 24 out of 63 students who received honorable mention.

Congratulations!

• March 23: Simons Building

#### Simons Building

In the Fall of 2016, MIT will officially dedicate the newly renovated Building 2 in honor of James H. and Marilyn Simons. Thanks to the couple's generosity the Institute was able to restore and renovate the building. Alumna Ann Beha led the project, modernizing the space and expanding it with the addition of a fourth floor while maintaining the historic integrity of the building's original limestome façade. The new Simons Building opened in January for the Spring semester.

• March 17: Intel Science Talent Search

#### Intel Science Talent Search

PRIMES and RSI math student Meena Jagadeesan has won the 2nd prize nationally in the Basic Research category of the Intel Science Talent Search 2016 . She was awarded the prize for her paper on algebraic combinatorics, written under the guidance of Miriam Farber (project suggested by Professor Alex Postnikov ). This was the only project in mathematics that won a top prize this year.

Congratulations Meena!

• March 7: MacVicar Fellow

#### MacVicar Fellow

Dean of Science and Donner Professor of Mathematics Michael Sipser has been awarded a 2016 MacVicar Faculty Fellowship . This award recognizes professors who exhibit exceptional undergraduate teaching, educational innovation, and mentoring.

Congratulations Mike!

• March 2: Sloan Fellowships

#### Sloan Fellowships

Assistant Professors Ankur Moitra and Vadim Gorin have been awarded 2016 Sloan Research Fellowships . This two-year fellowship recognizes early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise who have a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

• January 26: Wigner medal

#### Wigner medal

Professor Emeritus Bertram Kostant has been selected to receive the 2016 Wigner Medal . Awarded since 1978, the medal is given "to recognize outstanding contributions to the understanding of physics through Group Theory."

Congratulations Bert!

• January 19: Integral

#### Integral

• January 4: National Medal of Science

#### National Medal of Science

Professor Emeritus Michael Artin has been awarded the National Medal of Science , the highest honor in science and technology, for his outstanding contributions to mathematics.

Congratulations Michael!

### 2015

• December 14: AIMBE Fellow

• December 9: Honorary Doctorate

• December 8: Morgan Prize

• December 1: George Lusztig PRIMES Mentorships

#### George Lusztig PRIMES Mentorships

The 2016 George Lusztig PRIMES mentors are Chiheon Kim , Seth Shelley-Abrahamson , and Isabel Vogt. These positions are awarded annually to continuing PRIMES mathematics mentors for exceptional mentor service in past years.

Congratulations Chiheon, Seth and Isabel!

• November 30: Bose Grant

#### Bose Grant

Chemical Engineering and Mathematics Professor Martin Bazant , has been awarded a Professor Amar G. Bose Research Grant to support his innovative research. Bazant's project involves the development of theories behind ion transport and reactions in ionic liquids, on a molecular level. Such research could potentially be used for ultrafast rechargeable batteries.

Congratulations Martin!

• November 19: Marshall Scholar

#### Marshall Scholar

Võ Tiến Phong , a double major in Mathematics and Physics, has been named a 2016 Marshall Scholar . With this scholarship, Phong will study theoretical physics at University of Cambridge.

Congratulations Phong!

• November 12: MIT Team Develops Innovative Desalination System

#### MIT Team Develops Innovative Desalination System

Chemical Engineering and Mathematics Professor Martin Bazant , along with graduate student Sven Schlumpberger , undergraduate Nancy Lu , and former postdoc Matthew Suss , has recently published a paper in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters which describes a new approach to desalinating water. After extensive theoretical mathematical work on this problem, Bazant's innovation is a wonderful example of mathematics leading to experiments, which lead to new processes that address pressing global needs.

• November 10: New Horizons in Mathematics Prize

#### New Horizons in Mathematics Prize

Professor Larry Guth has been awarded the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize for ingenious and surprising solutions to long standing open problems in symplectic geometry, Riemannian geometry, harmonic analysis, and combinatorial geometry.

Congratulations Larry!

• October 28: New Memoir - George W. Whitehead Jr.

• September 21: Global Grand Challenges Summit

#### Global Grand Challenges Summit

Math undergraduate Nadia Wallace and two other undergraduates, Katrine Tjoelsen and Priya Kalluri , have won third place at the 2nd Global Grand Challenges Summit Student Day Competition in Beijing, China. Competing under the heading "Advancing Health Informatics," the students pitched a software-as-a-service company for adaptive clinical trials solutions. This summit is jointly organized by the NAE, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

• September 17: Daniel Kan Biography in AMS Notices

#### Daniel Kan Biography in AMS Notices

The October 2015 issue of the AMS publication, Notices , features a biographical article about former mathematics professor Daniel M. Kan (1927-2013). The article, written by Clark Barwick , Michael Hopkins, Haynes Miller and Ieke Moerdijk, reflects on Daniel's life, work and influence on the field of mathematics.

• September 15: Building 2 Architects Named Top Firm

• September 3: Henri Poincaré Prize

#### Henri Poincaré Prize

Professor Alexei Borodin has won the 2015 Henri Poincaré Prize . This prize, awarded every three years at the International Mathematical Physics Congress, recognizes outstanding contributions in mathematical physics and supports young people of exceptional promise who have already made outstanding contributions to the field.

Congratulations Alexei!

• August 31: Teaching Prize for Graduate Education

#### Teaching Prize for Graduate Education

Professor Larry Guth has been awarded the 2015 Teaching Prize for Graduate Education by the School of Science. Prize recipients are nominated by faculty and students to recognize their outstanding teaching.

Congratulations Larry!

• August 25: Davidson Math Awards

#### Davidson Math Awards

PRIMES student Noah Golowich became a Davidson Fellow Laureate ($50,000 award), and PRIMES USA student Peter Tian became a Davidson Fellow ($25,000 award). Among the 20 national fellowships only two were awarded for mathematical projects, and both went to PRIMES students. Both Noah and Peter were also RSI students in 2014.

Thank you to Noah's mentors Laszlo Lovasz , David Rolnick , and Yufei Zhao , Peter's mentor Jesse Geneson , PRIMES and RSI Head mentor Tanya Khovanova , Professor Jacob Fox who provided the projects, and to Professor David Jerison and Dr. Slava Gerovitch who do a great job running these programs!

Congratulations Noah and Peter!

• August 17: PRIMES Featured in AMS Notices

#### PRIMES Featured in AMS Notices

The September 2015 issue of the AMS publication, Notices , features a an article about the PRIMES program, an MIT research-based program for high school students. The article was written by Slava Gerovitch , Tanya Khovanova , and Pavel Etingof .

• August 3: Rogers Family Prize

#### Rogers Family Prize

The 2015 Hartley Rogers Jr. Family Prize for the best SPUR paper has been shared between student Yuchen Fu and his mentor Seth Shelley-Abrahamson , and student Ofer Grossman and his mentor Dongkwan Kim . Their projects were suggested by Pavel Etingof and Andrew Sutherland .

Congratulations, Yuchen, Seth, Ofer, and Dongkwan!

• July 29: Alexander Kuznetsov Prize

#### Alexander Kuznetsov Prize

Professor Martin Bazant has been awarded the Alexander Kuznetsov Prize in Theoretical Electrochemistry by the International Society of Electrochemistry. This prize is awarded every two years to a living individual who has made groundbreaking contribution to the theory of electrochemical phenomena.

Congratulations Martin!

• July 22: Clay Prize

#### Clay Prize

Professor Larry Guth , together with Nets Katz, has won the 2015 Clay Research Prize for his solution to the Erdős distance problem and for other joint and separate contributions to combinatorial incidence geometry.

Congratulations Larry!

• July 20: OCW

#### OCW

The traffic to the MIT Mathematics OCW Scholar courses is outstanding. One course, 18.01SC Single Variable Calculus , has reached 2.2 million visits. 18.02SC Multivariable Calculus and 18.06SC Linear Algebra have each received more than 1 million visits, and 18.03SC Differential Equations (which was published in late 2013) is now approaching 1 million. In the last 18 months, 14 new course sites have been published for the Mathematics Department through MIT OpenCourseWare.

MIT OpenCourseWare

• July 20: Loève Prize

#### Loève Prize

Professor Alexei Borodin has won the 2015 Loève Prize. The prize, awarded every two years, is intended to recognize outstanding contributions by young researchers in probability.

Congratulations Alexei

• July 1: Leslie Fox Prize

#### Leslie Fox Prize

Applied Math instructor Alex Townsend has won the Leslie Fox prize in Numerical Analysis . This award is given every two years to a young numerical analyst for mathematical and algorithmic brilliance in tandem with presentational skills.

Congratulations Alex!

• June 29: Faculty Chair - Speck

#### Faculty Chair - Speck

Jared Speck is the new Cecil and Ida Green Career Assistant Professor of Mathematics. This professorship recognizes and encourages excellence in teaching by gifted young faculty members.

Congratulations Jared!

• June 29: Mark Hyman, Jr. Career Development Professorship

#### Mark Hyman, Jr. Career Development Professorship

Jonathan Kelner is the new Mark Hyman, Jr. Career Development Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics. This chair honors outstanding researchers by allowing them flexibility to pursue new ideas and opportunities.

Congratulations Jonathan!

• June 12: Babbage Award

#### Babbage Award

Math faculty member Alan Edelman has won the 2015 Charles Babbage Award . This award is given each year to an IPDPS conference participant in recognition of exceptional contributions to the field of parallel computation.

Congratulations Alan!

• June 12: MOOC

• June 1: Laurent Demanet Promoted to Tenure

#### Laurent Demanet Promoted to Tenure

Math faculty member Laurent Demanet has been promoted to tenure as approved by the MIT Corporation Executive Committee.

Congratulations Laurent!

• May 20: Graduate Student Appreciation Fellowship

Ruthi Hortsch has received the Math Department's Graduate Student Appreciation Fellowship, in recognition of outstanding teaching and service to the department.

Congratulations Ruthi!

• May 15: Charles and Holly Housman Award

#### Charles and Holly Housman Award

Graduate Students Dana Mendelson , Michael Andrews , and Daniel Harris have been awarded Charles and Holly Housman Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Pictured above, the students were congratulated by Charles Housman, Gigliola Staffilani and Tom Mrowka.

Congratulations Michael, Daniel, and Dana!

• May 15: Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize

#### Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize

Graduate Students Yufei Zhao and Francesco Lin have been awarded Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prizes. This prize is given to graduate students in mathematics for an outstanding paper accepted for publication in a major journal.

Congratulations Francesco and Yufei!

• May 15: Hertz Foundation Fellowships

#### Hertz Foundation Fellowships

Undergraduates Cole Graham , Alexander Siegenfeld , and Jordan Cotler have been awarded Hertz Foundation Fellowships. These fellowships are given to support outstanding students with the freedom to innovate as part of their graduate studies.

Congratulations Cole, Alex and Jordan!

• May 15: Barry Goldwater Scholarship

#### Barry Goldwater Scholarship

Math major Felipe Hernandez has won a Goldwater Scholarship. This prestigious award is merit-based and highly competive, with only 300 scholarships awarded nationally.

Congratulations Felipe!

• May 15: Jon A. Bucsela Prize

#### Jon A. Bucsela Prize

Ka Yu Tam has received the Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics.

Congratulations Ka Yu!

• May 15: NSF Graduate Fellows

The following students have been awarded 2015 NSF Fellowships for Graduate Study:

• Amol Aggarwal
• Julian Chaidez
• Caelan Reed Garrett
• Carl Lian
• Quanquan Liu
• Joel Schneider
• Brandon Tran
• Alex Siegenfeld
• Erik Waingarten

Congratulations!

• May 11: Honorary Degree

#### Honorary Degree

Professor Bonnie Berger will be awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne during the school's October graduation ceremony. EPFL has top CS and life science departments and is deeply engaged in many areas of computing, biology and medicine.

Congratulations Bonnie!

• April 29: National Academy of Sciences

Department Head Tomasz Mrowka has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Members are elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Membership is one of the highest honors that a scientist can achieve.

Congratulations Tom!

• April 27: MIT Phi Beta Kappa

#### MIT Phi Beta Kappa

The Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected 43 mathematics majors (nearly half of the 90 electees in the entire school) from the Class of 2015 to become members. Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest academic honor society with a very selective invitation process. Membership is awarded to students in recognition of excellent academic records and commitment to the objectives of a liberal education.

Congratulations Electees!

• April 27: Frank E. Perkins Award

#### Frank E. Perkins Award

Professor Pavel Etingof has been awarded the Frank E. Perkins award for Excellence in Graduate Advising. Named in honor of Frank E. Perkins, Dean of the Graduate School from 1983-85, this award is presented to a faculty member who demonstrates unbounded compassion and dedication towards students.

Congratulations Pavel!

• April 24: Graduate Woman of Excellence

Isabel Vogt , a first-year graduate student, was honored at a celebration on April 23 as one of this year's Graduate Women of Excellence . Isabel, along with 50 other MIT women, was selected for this honor by the Office of the Dean of Graduate Education (ODGE). The award not only recognizes Isabel's mathematical achievements and research potential, but also her contributions to mentoring others, including her work with Girls' Angle, a math club for girls, and her years of work as a mentor and this year as the program coordinator of MIT's PRIMES Circle , promoting mathematics for students of disadvantaged backgrounds in Boston-area high schools. Thanks to Professor Pavel Etingof for nominating Isabel.

Congratulations, Isabel!

• April 22: American Academy of Arts and Sciences

#### American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor William Minicozzi has been elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The American Academy has served the nation as a champion of scholarship, civil dialogue, and useful knowledge since 1780 and its members include many of the most accomplished scholars and practitioners worldwide.

Congratulations Bill!

• April 8: Infinite Mile

#### Infinite Mile

Human Resources Coordinator Daniel Delgado and Administrative Assistant Jonathan Harmon have been awarded School of Science Infinite Mile Awards. The Infinite Mile award recognizes those individuals who have gone above and beyond their required duties. This includes going beyond expectation in mentoring, learning and skill building, innovation, and community building.

Congratulations Dan and Jonathan!

• April 1: Putnam Competition

#### Putnam Competition

Our 1st Place Team:

Mitchell M. Lee, Zipei Nie, and David H. Yang

Our Putnam Fellows:

Zipei Nie, Mark A. Sellke, Bobby C. Shen, David H. Yang and Lingfu Zhang

In addition to having the 1st place team and 5 of the 6 highest ranking individuals, MIT has 5 of the next 10 top scorers, 6 of the next 11, and 16 students who received honorable mention.

## Congratulations!

• March 13: Simons Fellowship

#### Simons Fellowship

Professor Bjorn Poonen has been awarded a 2015 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics . This award is granted to scientists with great potential for research accomplishment based on their accomplishments within the past five years.

Congratulations Bjorn!

• March 11: PRIMES/RSI Students Win Top Intel Prizes

Joshua Brakensiek of RSI 2012 received a $10,000 scholarship for the project, "Bounds on the Size of Sound Monotone Switching Networks Accepting Permutation Sets of Directed Trees" (mentor Aaron Potechin). Jacob McNamara of RSI 2012 received an honorable mention for the project, "A Bound on the Norm of Shortest Vectors in Lattices Arising from CM Number Fields" (mentor Mitka Vaintrob). Congratulations Laureates! • June 30: Staff Infinite Mile Awards #### Staff Infinite Mile Awards Debbie Bower, Shirley Entzminger, Susan Fontes Moura and Avisha Lalla received the Infinite Mile Award of the School of Science for their tremendous contributions to the Mathematics Department. The Award recognizes those individuals who have gone Above and Beyond in their work. • June 26: Career Development Chairs #### Career Development Chairs Clark Barwick is the new Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Assistant Professor of Mathematics. Laurent Demanet is the new Class of 1954 Career Development Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics. • June 5: Graduate Awards #### Graduate Awards The Department of Mathematics recently held its annual awards ceremony to honor the accomplishments of our graduate students. Nan Li, Ailsa Keating and John Lesieutre received the Charles and Holly Housman Award for Undergraduate Teaching. Paul Seidel presents the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize to Yin Tat Lee and Eric Marberg, for their outstanding papers accepted for publication in a major journal. • June 4: Undergraduate Awards #### Undergraduate Awards Holden Lee received the Mathematics Department's Jon A. Bucsela Prize for distinguished scholastic achievement. He also recevied a Gates Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge. Yangzhou Hu was an Honorable Mention Awardee of the Alice T. Schafer Prize for Excellence in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Woman. Noam Angrist, a math and economics major, received a Fulbright Scholarship to work in Botswana next year on educational reform. • May 17: 2013 PRIMES Conference #### 2013 PRIMES Conference • May 6: National Academy of Sciences #### National Academy of Sciences Victor Kac and David Vogan were recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Congratulations Victor and David! • April 3: Putnam Competition Results #### Putnam Competition Results Results of the 2012 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition are in: MIT has 3 of the 5 Putnam Fellows and 12 of the top 25 scorers. We also have 34 of the 84 students with Honorable Mention or above; thus over 40% of the high-scorers are our students! MIT Putnam Fellows: • Benjamin Gunby • Mitchell Lee • Zipei Nie Other MIT students in top 25: Whan Ghang, Sung Gi Park, Szu-Po Wang, Tianyou Zhou, Alex Zhu, Joshua Alman, Holden Lee Jeffrey Shen, Ka Yu Tam MIT Honorable Mentions: Robi Bhattacharjee, Justin Brereton, Lucas Camelo Sa, Kevin Chen, Alexander Cole, Michael Cohen, Zheng Fan, Brian Hamrick, Jiaoyang Huang, Hyun Sub Hwang, Kuan-Yu Lin, Eric Mannes, Ofir Nachum, Jonathan Schneider, Brandon Tran, Mark Velednitsky, Anderson Wang, Anthony Wang, Michael Wu, George Xing, Kerry Xing, Dai Yang • February 22: Sloan Research Fellowships #### Sloan Research Fellowships Jacob Fox and Sug Woo Shin are among the six MIT faculty members receiving Sloan Research Fellowships this year. • February 12: Jon Kelner awarded School of Science Teaching Prize #### Jon Kelner awarded School of Science Teaching Prize The School of Science has announced that Jon has received the Teaching Prize for Undergraduate Education. • January 22: Chelsea Walton Awarded 2013 Infinite Kilometer #### Chelsea Walton Awarded 2013 Infinite Kilometer Chelsea Walton is Awarded a 2013 Infinite Kilometer. This honor is in recognition of Chelsea's hard work and leadership in PRIMES Circle, a new program established for mathematically talented students with underprivileged backgrounds. PRIMES Circle owes much of its success to her enthusiasm and dedication. • January 22: Cesar Duarte to Receive MIT Excellence Award #### Cesar Duarte to Receive MIT Excellence Award Cesar Duarte is to Receive the MIT Excellence Award. President Rafael Reif will present the award, in the category of "Innovative Solutions" to Cesar this spring. Cesar has contributed to many of the Department's design projects and has been a valuable resource in the planning process of the upcoming renovations. • January 14: Chia-Chiao Lin, 1916-2013 #### Chia-Chiao Lin, 1916-2013 Institute Professor Emeritus Chia-Chiao Lin passed away Sunday morning in Beijing. He joined the Mathematics Faculty in 1947 and retired in 1987. He was a seminal figure in applied mathematics. MIT news • January 9: David Jerison wins Bergman Prize #### David Jerison wins Bergman Prize David Jerison is a co-winner, with his collaborator Jack Lee (University of Washington), of the 2012 Bergman Prize. • January 3: Mike Artin Receives Wolf Prize #### Mike Artin Receives Wolf Prize The Wolf Foundation has recently announced that Mike Artin will receive the Wolf Prize in Mathematics. Israel's President Shimon Peres will officially award the prizes this spring. ### 2012 • December 6: Our 2012 Newsletter 1ntegraL is Out! #### Our 2012 Newsletter 1ntegraL is Out! • October 31: Alice T. Schafer Prize #### Alice T. Schafer Prize Mathematics Senior Yangzhou Hu won Honorable Mention for the 2013 Alice T. Schafer Prize for undergraduate women demonstrating excellence in mathematics, marking the seventh year in a row that an MIT student has won Honorable Mention or more in the Schafer Prize. Congratulations Yangzhou! • October 23: PRIMES and RSI successes #### PRIMES and RSI successes All eight regional finalist awards in the 2012 Siemens Competition in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in all fields went to PRIMES students . Also, two PRIMES students and five RSI students are Siemens semifinalists. Congratulations to the winners and to PRIMES and RSI mentors and staff! • September 6: Davidson Fellow Laureates #### Davidson Fellow Laureates Among the 22 nationally selected high school student laureates, three of the prizes were awarded for projects in mathematics, and all three went to students mentored at MIT's Department of Mathematics, two at PRIMES and one at RSI . The laureates are: • PRIMES Student David Ding received first prize for the project, "Infinitesimal Cherednik Algebras of gl_n" (mentor Sasha Tsymbaliuk); • RSI Student Sitan Chen , for the project, "On the Rank Number of Grid Graphs" (mentor Jesse Geneson); • PRIMES Student Xiaoyu He , for the project, "On the Classification of Universal Rotor-Routers" (mentor Dr. Tanya Khovanova). • August 10: Lewis and Zhang Win Best Student Paper Award • August 10: Aggarwal and Wang Win the Rogers Prize #### Aggarwal and Wang Win the Rogers Prize The 2012 Hartley Rogers Jr. Prize for the best SPUR paper has been awarded to Sophomore Amol Aggarwal and his mentor, Graduate Student Gouzhen Wang, for the project, "Using Difference Operators to Determine the Correlation Functions of the Schur Process," suggested by Alexei Borodin. • July 13: Sutherland Receives Selfridge Prize #### Sutherland Receives Selfridge Prize Principal Research Scientist Andrew Sutherland has been awarded the Selfridge Prize for his paper, "On the Evaluation of Modular Polynomials." This distinction is given in recognition of the best paper presented at the biennial Algorithmic Number Theory Symposium. • July 3: Seidel and Guionnet Chosen as Simons Investigators #### Seidel and Guionnet Chosen as Simons Investigators Paul Seidel and Alice Guionnet have been included among the 21 mathematicians, theoretical physicists, and theoretical computer scientists who have been selected as Simons Investigators in this inaugural year for the Simons Investigators program. • May 21: Fan Wei receives the Jon A. Bucsela Prize #### Fan Wei receives the Jon A. Bucsela Prize Undergraduate student Fan Wei has received the Jon A. Bucsela Prize for distinguished scholastic achievement. • May 21: Undergraduate Awards #### Undergraduate Awards The Department of Mathematics recently held its annual awards ceremony to honor the accomplishments of the student body. This year the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize was awarded to Steven Sam for his outstanding paper. Sheel Ganatra, Hoeskuldur Halldorsson, and Alejandro Morales received the Charles and Holly Housman Award for Excellence in Teaching. • April 26: Jacob Fox receives the Edmund F. Kelly Research Award #### Jacob Fox receives the Edmund F. Kelly Research Award Jacob Fox has been selected to receive the Edmund F. Kelly Research Award. Congratulations Jacob! • April 26: Pavel Etingof is appointed a Robert E. Collins Distinguished Scholar #### Pavel Etingof is appointed a Robert E. Collins Distinguished Scholar Pavel Etingof has been appointed a Robert E. Collins Distinguished Scholar. Congratulations Pavel! • April 18: Victor Kac receives a Simons Fellows in Mathematics. #### Victor Kac receives a Simons Fellows in Mathematics. Victor Kac has been included in the first round of Simons Fellows in Mathematics . Congratulations Victor! • April 18: Bonnie Berger and Bjorn Poonen elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. #### Bonnie Berger and Bjorn Poonen elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bonnie Berger and Bjorn Poonen were recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Congratulations Bonnie and Bjorn! • February 17: Alejandro Rodriguez-Wong receives an Infinite Kilometer Award #### Alejandro Rodriguez-Wong receives an Infinite Kilometer Award Alejandro Rodriguez-Wong received an Infinite Kilometer Award for his commitment to outreach in the larger community, especially to underrepresented minorities and for many other deeds and accomplishments. Congratulations Alejandro! • February 17: Andrew Sutherland receives an Infinite Kilometer Awardh #### Andrew Sutherland receives an Infinite Kilometer Awardh Andrew Sutherland received an Infinite Kilometer Award for his outstanding contributions to UROP, freshman advising, SPLASH and HSSP. Congratulations Andrew! • February 17: Erin McGrath receives a 2012 MIT Excellence Award #### Erin McGrath receives a 2012 MIT Excellence Award Erin McGrath, Director of Development for Math and Physics, received a 2012 MIT Excellence Award, the highest award given to MIT staff. Congratulations Erin! ### 2011 • November 28: David Vogan elected AMS President #### David Vogan elected AMS President David Vogan has been elected to be the next AMS President starting 2013. • November 28: Igor Rodnianski wins Fermat Prize #### Igor Rodnianski wins Fermat Prize Congratulations to Igor Rodnianski, co-recipient of the 2011 Fermat Prize . • November 9: Alice T. Schafer Prize • October 18: Integral 2011 #### Integral 2011 • August 1: New Faculty Chairs #### New Faculty Chairs New Faculty Endowed Chair Appointments Gil Strang has been appointed as MathWorks Professor, a new endowed chair in our department. Mark Behrens has been appointed to the Cecil and Ida B. Green Career Development Chair. • June 24: Scott Sheffield Receives the Loeve Prize #### Scott Sheffield Receives the Loeve Prize Professor Scott Sheffield has been awarded the Loeve Prize . Congratulations Scott! • May 23: Royal Society • May 13: Student Awards #### Student Awards Johnson Prize for Research Congratulations to Vedran Sohinger and Steven Sivek , who have both been awarded the Johnson Prize for Research. Housman Award for Teaching Congratulations to Linan Chen and Joel Lewis for receiving the Housman Award for Teaching. Bucsela Prize for Undergraduate Achievement Congratulations to Alexandr Zamorzaev who has won the Bucsela Prize for Undergraduate Achievement. Anna Pogosyants Award for a UROP in CSAIL Congratulations to Paul Christiano for winning the Anna Pogosyants Award for a UROP in CSAIL. • May 17: PRIMES Annual Conference #### PRIMES Annual Conference Saturday, May 21, 2011 Room 4-370, MIT Open to the public Faculty, Instructors, and graduate students interested in mentoring or proposing projects for PRIMES in the future are encouraged to attend. • April 28: Jon Kelner Receives MIT's Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award #### Jon Kelner Receives MIT's Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award Jon Kelner received MIT's Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award which recognizes a junior faculty member for exceptional distinction in teaching and research. Congratulations Jon! • April 28: Bonnie Berger to give the Margaret Pittman Lecture #### Bonnie Berger to give the Margaret Pittman Lecture Bonnie Berger has been invited to give the prestigious Margaret Pittman Lecture, sponsored annually by the National Institute of Health. Congratulations Bonnie! • April 20: Simons Lectures in Mathematics #### Simons Lectures in Mathematics April 20 - April 27 Steven Strogatz (Cornell University) Title: Sync, Balance, and Blog Manjul Bhargava (Princeton University) Title: Orbits of Group Representations and Arithmetic • April 20: Peter Shor elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences #### Peter Shor elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Peter Shor was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations Peter! • April 11: Poonen Receives Guggenheim Fellowship • February 17: Demanet Receives Sloan Research Fellowship #### Demanet Receives Sloan Research Fellowship Assistant Professor Laurent Demanet is among the three MIT faculty members to receive a Sloan Research Fellowship this year. Congratulations Laurent! • January 12: David Vogan wins the Conant Prize • January 12: Tom Mrowka wins the Doob Prize • January 12: Bjorn Poonen wins the Chauvenet Prize • January 5: IAP Activities #### IAP Activities Lectures by mathematics faculty members on interesting topics from both classical and modern mathematics. ### 2010 • December 7: MIT School Of Science Colloquium #### MIT School Of Science Colloquium Mathematics, Common Sense and Good Luck: My Life and Careers Jim Simons, President of Euclidean Capital and Founder and Chairman of the Board of Renaissance Technologies Thursday, December 9, 2010 3:45pm - Community Reception (4-349) 4:15pm - Colloquium and Q&A (10-250) • November 8: Katrin Wehrheim wins PECASE Award #### Katrin Wehrheim wins PECASE Award Professor Katrin Wehrheim has been named as one of the recipients of the 2010 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). White House press release Congratulations Katrin Wehrheim! • November 1: 2011 Alice T. Schafer Honorable Mentions • October 15: Norbert Wiener Lectures #### Norbert Wiener Lectures Norbert Wiener Lectures Charles Fefferman Princeton University Interpolation of Data in Rn October 21, 22 and 26th, 4:30 - 5:30pm Lectures 1 & 2: Room 4-237 Lecture 3: Room 4-270 • September 10: Integral 2010 #### Integral 2010 Our Autumn 2010 Newsletter is Out! • August 10: Women in Math Website #### Women in Math Website Please visit our new website for Women in Math • August 6: Jacob Fox wins Denes Prize #### Jacob Fox wins Denes Prize Our new Assistant Professor and Simons Fellow Jacob Fox was awarded SIAM's Dénes König Prize for work in Discrete Mathematics. Congratulations Jacob Fox • June 29: New Faculty Chairs #### New Faculty Chairs Toby Colding and Ben Brubaker are appointed as the Levinson Professor of Mathematics and the Green Career Development Assistant Professor of Mathematics. • May 10: Sarah Smith wins Infinite Mile Award #### Sarah Smith wins Infinite Mile Award A huge Thank You to Sarah Smith for doing a wonderful job as our Administrative Officer. • May 10: Charmaine Sia wins AMITA Senior Academic Award #### Charmaine Sia wins AMITA Senior Academic Award Charmaine has won the 2010 Institute-wide AMITA Senior Academic Award. Congratulations Charmaine Sia! • April 11: Tom Mrowka recieves Guggenheim Fellowship #### Tom Mrowka recieves Guggenheim Fellowship Tom is smiling because he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Congratulations Tom Mrowka! • April 8: Simons Lectures #### Simons Lectures April 28 - May 5th 2010 Wednesday's Lecture: Andrei Okounkov 4:30pm, Room 4-370 Lecture 3: Towards probabilistic mirror symmetry Reception at 4:00pm in 2-290 • April 1: Yufei Zhao awarded Gates Cambridge Scholarship #### Yufei Zhao awarded Gates Cambridge Scholarship Senior Yufei Zhao, a math and computer science major, is one of three MIT students awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. • April 1: Maria Monks receives Hertz Fellowship #### Maria Monks receives Hertz Fellowship Senior math major Maria Monks is a recipient of the prestigious Hertz Fellowship worth$250,000.

• March 29: 2010 Intel Science Talent Search

• March 20: MIT Team wins Putnam Competition

#### MIT Team wins Putnam Competition

MIT Team Wins First Place!

Congratulations to our first place team and to all participants for achieving extraordinary results in this year's competition!

• March 17: William Velez Talk

#### William Velez Talk

SPECIAL LECTURE

The Mathematical Enterprise: A Minority Perspective
April 5th at 4:30pm
Room 4-370

William Yslas Vélez
(University of Arizona)

Open to the Public
Reception at 4:00 PM in 4-349

• February 10: Abhinav Kumar and Jonathan Kelner

• January 25: Toby Colding and Paul Seidel

• January 10: Ken Kamrin and Maria Monks