News Archive

Professor Scott Sheffield received the 2024 Henri Poincaré prize at the International Congress on Mathematical Physics, which is held every three years.

Scott, who was among four who received this year’s prize, gave an overview of random surfaces theory at the event. The prize was created in 1997 to “recognize outstanding contributions in mathematical physics, and contributions which lay the groundwork for novel developments in this broad field.” Professor Alexei Borodin received this award in 2015.

Congratulations, Scott!

Professor Peter Shor PhD ’85 received the 2025 Claude E. Shannon award from the IEEE Information Theory Society “for consistent and profound contributions to the field of information theory," in particular, for quantum error-correcting codes, for fault-tolerating quantum computing, and for questions of channel capacity for quantum channels.

Peter will deliver the Claude Shannon lecture at ISIT in 2025. Known as the “father of Information Theory,” Claude Shannon PhD ’40 and Shor did much of their research on information theory while at Bell Labs.

Congratulations, Peter!

The Department welcomes three assistant professors as of July 1: Shaoyun Bai, Jacopo Borga, and Christoph Kehle.

Shaoyun specializes in symplectic topology and is interested in problems interacting with neighboring fields. After receiving his PhD from Princeton University under the supervision of John Pardon, Shaoyun held short-term visiting positions at MSRI (now SLMath) and the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics. Most recently he was the Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University.

Previously the Szegö Assistant Professor at Stanford, Jacopo is interested in probability theory and its connections to combinatorics and mathematical physics. Jacopo received his PhD in Mathematics from the Institut für Mathematik of the Universität Zürich, under the supervision of Valentin Feŕay and Mathilde Bouvel. In 2022, he received the Bernoulli Society New Researcher Award, and in 2023, the Bruno de Finetti Award.

Christoph is interested in analysis, partial differential equations, and general relativity, with recent research focused on the formation and dynamics of black holes. After receiving his PhD in 2020 from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Mihalis Dafermos, Christoph was a member of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study and a junior fellow at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Theoretical Studies.

Please welcome Christoph, Jacobo, and Shaoyun!

Rupert Li ’24 was among 10 MIT-affiliated students who received the prestigious Hertz Foundation fellowship, which provides funding for doctoral studies.

Rupert received degrees at MIT in mathematics as well as computer science, data science, and economics, with a minor in business analytics. He was named a 2024 Marshall Scholar and will study abroad for a year at Cambridge University before matriculating at Stanford University for a mathematics doctorate.

As an undergraduate, Li authored 12 math research articles in combinatorics, discrete geometry, probability, and harmonic analysis.

Congratulations, Rupert!

Congratulations to the winners, and a big thank you to PRIMES Director Slava Gerovitch, PRIMES Chief Research Advisor Pavel Etingof, RSI Faculty Advisor David Jerison, PRIMES/RSI head mentor Tanya Khovanova, and the students’ mentors!

Abdun-Nur Professor of Mathematics George Lusztig received a gold medal from the West University of Timișoara in Romania. George was born and raised in Timișoara. This Honorary Distinction for Excellence is given to international personalities for excellence in various fields.

Felicitări, George!

The Edmund F. Kelly Research Award has been awarded to Assistant Professor John Urschel .

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, John!

The Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation has granted tenure to Lisa Piccirillo and to Yufei Zhao, effective July 1, 2024.

Congratulations to both!

The 2024 Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize, for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal, has been awarded to graduate student Calder Morton-Ferguson for his paper "Symplectic Fourier-Deligne transforms on G/U and the algebra of braids and ties," in International Mathematics Research Notices, April 2024, and to Kai Zhe Zheng for his paper “Near Optimal Alphabet-Soundness Tradeoff PCPs” in Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, Report No. 27, 2024.

Congratulations, Calder and Kai Zhe!

Graduate student Davis Evans is the recipient of the David J. Benney Prize.

This award recognizes excellence in applied mathematics, with preference given to students in physical applied math, computational science, numerical analysis, computational biology, or theoretical physics. Davis is a PhD candidate working on hydrodynamic quantum analogues in John Bush’s lab.

This award honors David Benney, an applied math professor who died in 2015. Benney chaired the Applied Mathematics Committee from 1983-1985, and served as Department Head for two terms, 1989-1999.

Congratulations, Davis!

The 2024 Charles and Holly Housman Award for Excellence in Teaching goes to seniors Yiming Chen (TA for courses including 6.122 and 18.800) and Katie Miner (18.02 TA); to graduate student Ryan Chen (TA for 18.06); and to instructors Alex Pieloch (18.901 fall 2023, 18.03 spring 2024), Thomas Rüd (18.01A and 18.02A fall 2023, 18.781 spring 2024) and Jonathan Zung (18.904 fall 2023, 18.900 spring 2024).

Undergraduate awards were presented at the Senior Dinner on May 8, and graduate, postdoc, and instructor awards at the Spring Social on May 22.

Congratulations, Alex, Jonathan, Katie, Ryan, Thomas, and Yiming!

The 2024 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics has been awarded to senior math majors Saba Lepsveridze and Frank Wang for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics.

Congratulations, Frank and Saba!

Several math community members received the 2024 Peter Baddoo Community Building Award, for individuals who have made significant contributions to building and strengthening our MIT Math community.

At the Senior Dinner on May 8, Paige Bright was awarded for her Department volunteering efforts, PRIMES Circle outreach, and TA work. Mehrab Jamee was recognized for his work as Undergraduate Math Association president, including organizing social events and academic talks, creating math course resources and Putnam practice sessions, and overseeing the distribution of the popular UMA hoodies. Daniel Santiago-Alvarez was praised for increasing undergrad involvement in DEI, and running panels, mentorship workshops, and coffee chats.

At the May 22 Spring Social, graduate student recipients were Tang-Kai Lee, for dedication to his role as TA for 18.02 and 18.06; and Catherine Wolfram, for her efforts as a TA in 18.600. Instructor Keaton Naff was recognized for his leadership in sections such as 18.100P. All three recipients are actively involved in organizations including the Geometric Analysis Reading seminar and DRP.

This award is named in honor of the late Department instructor Peter Baddoo, who received the Community Building Award in 2022 for organizing tea and coffee hours for the postdoc community.

Congratulations, Catherine, Daniel, Keaton, Mehrab, Paige, and Tang-Kai!

The Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected 54 mathematics majors, among 127 electees from MIT's Class of 2024, to become members.

Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. Membership is awarded to students in recognition of excellent academic records and commitment to the objectives of a liberal education. The annual Phi Beta Kappa lecture and initiation ceremony is May 29, during MIT’s Commencement week.

Full list of Mathematics Inductees

Congratulations to our newest members of Phi Beta Kappa!

The MIT Corporation Executive Committee has approved the following faculty promotions, effective July 1, 2024:

Semyon Dyatlov and Nike Sun have been promoted to Full Professor, while Lisa Piccirillo and Yufei Zhao have been promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure.

Congratulations to all!

Third-years Ben Lou and Kenta Suzuki each received a Barry Goldwater Scholarship for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Ben is majoring in physics and math with a minor in philosophy. Under the mentorship of the LIGO Group’s Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the School of Science, and graduate student Hudson Loughlin, he is working on research to advance the field of quantum measurement, with potential applications including quantum gravity. He thanks his advisors Janet Conrad from Physics and Thomas Rüd from Math. He also acknowledges support from Math’s Elijah Bodish and Roman Bezrukavnikov; Physics’ Alan Guth, Barton Zwiebach, and Richard Price; and David W. Brown of the San Diego Math Circle.

An alum of the PRIMES and SPUR programs, Kenta is a math major who works with Roman on research at the intersection of number and representation theory, using geometric methods to represent p-adic groups. Kenta says he was also inspired to research representation theory by Zhiwei Yun and Wei Zhang.

They were among 438 U.S. college students selected on the basis of academic merit.

Read more in the MIT News.

Congratulations, Ben and Kenta!

Professor Emeritus Daniel J. Kleitman is among the 120 new members and 24 new international members elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Daniel, alongside Gian-Carlo Rota and Richard Stanley, shaped the field of combinatorics at MIT and beyond.

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 18 other NAS members in our department.

Congratulations, Daniel!

Assistant Professor Dor Minzer and graduate student Kai Zhe Zheng will be receiving a Best Paper Award at the June 24-28 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2024).

In their paper, Dor and Kai provide a near-optimal trade-off for so-called 2-prover 1-round games, which are crucial to proving strong inapproximability results.

Dor and others from our Department and MIT have other papers that have been accepted at the symposium. The symposium is the flagship conference of ACM’s SIGACT (Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory).

Congratulations, Dor and Kai!

The School of Science has selected Mathematics Program Coordinator André Lee Dixon as one of the recipients of the 2024 Infinite Mile Award!

“I have been consistently struck by the level of initiative and passion André brings to work,” says his nominator, John Urschel PhD ’21.

Infinite Mile Award winners are nominated by colleagues for going above and beyond in their roles at the Institute.

Congratulations, André!

Elchanan Mossel has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2024.

He and six other MIT faculty members are among 250 leaders from academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research elected this year by one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies.

Congratulations, Elchanan!

John Urschel PhD ’21 will receive the 2024 SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra Early Career Prize. He will be awarded this May at the SIAM Conference on Applied Linear Algebra in Paris.

Established in 2017, this prize is awarded every three years to one post-PhD early-career researcher in the field of applicable linear algebra, for outstanding contributions within six years of receiving their PhD.

John was recognized for his work in linear algebra, using many different techniques from mathematics, such as random matrix theory, orthogonal polynomials, group theory, and optimization

Congratulations, John!

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

Juniors Sashko Horokh, Margaret Wang, and Grace Zhang are among 35 MIT students named 2024 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.

Read more in the MIT News.

Congratulations, Grace, Margaret, and Sashko!

Professor Semyon Dyatlov was awarded a 2024 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics. Outstanding mathematicians recognized by the Simons Fellows program are able to extend academic 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, Semyon!

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) named John Urschel as the recipient of the 2024 Richard C. DiPrima Prize.

He was cited “for outstanding contributions to fundamental problems in applied linear algebra developed in his PhD dissertation entitled 'Graphs, Principal Minors, and Eigenvalue Problems.'”

This prize is awarded every two years by SIAM to one early career researcher who has done outstanding research in applied mathematics. He will receive the prize at the 2024 SIAM Annual Meeting (AN24) in Spokane, Wash.

Congratulations, John!

Ishan Levy and Mehtaab Sawhney have been awarded 2024 Clay Research Fellowships, for a term of five years.

Levy is known for his contributions to homotopy theory, and Sawhney is recognized for his breakthroughs on fundamental problems across extremal combinatorics, probability theory, and theoretical computer science.

Other current Fellows with MIT Math connections include researcher Yang Li, who received it in 2020; Assistant Professor Lisa Piccirillo, and former postdocs Maggie Miller and Alexander Smith, in 2021; and CLE Moore Instructor Ziquan Zhuang, in 2022.

Congratulations, Ishan and Mehtaab!

Please welcome Aleksandr Logunov, who joined our faculty as a full professor as of January 1. Aleksandr specializes in harmonic analysis, potential theory, and geometric analysis.

He received his BS in 2012 and, under Viktor Petrovich Havin, his PhD in 2015 from St. Petersburg State University, and was a postdoc at Tel Aviv University. He was a researcher and assistant professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University, and most recently a professor at the University of Geneva.

He is the 2021 recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics — New Horizons in Mathematics, 2020 EMS Prize of the European Mathematical Society, 2018 Salem Prize, and 2017 Clay Research Award.

Congratulations, Aleksandr!

Congratulations Rupert!

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne’s Lenka Zdeborová will give three lectures April 23, 24, and 25, as part of the Department of Mathematics’s annual Simons Lecture Series.

She is an associate professor of physics and of computer science and communication systems as well as head of the Statistical Physics of Computation Laboratory.

Computation through the lens of spin glasses

• Lecture 1:
  Phase transitions in computational problems
• Lecture 2:
  Inference, learning and optimization in complex landscapes I
• Lecture 3:
  Inference, learning and optimization in complex landscapes II

Each lecture will begin with a 4 p.m. reception in 2-290, followed by an hour lecture from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in 2-190.

This annual lecture series features presentations by top mathematicians. Many thanks to Jim and Marilyn Simons for their financial support of these lectures.

Four members of our community received the 2024 named PRIMES mentorships for exceptional mentor service.

Those receiving the 2024 George Lusztig Mentorships are:

Felix Gotti, an NSF postdoc who has been the PRIMES group research coordinator and the CrowdMath lead mentor for the past two years. His direct PRIMES/CrowdMath mentees have published nine research papers under his supervision. He is studying atomic and combinatorial aspects of commutative rings and monoids,

Serina Hu, who is studying noncommutative algebra and representation theory. She is the director of √mathroots and has also mentored for PRIMES, DRP, and GUMMI; and

Vijay Srinivasan, who is the head mentor for √mathroots; other past mentorships include DRP and GUMMI. He is studying number theory and arithmetic geometry.

The 2024 Bershadsky Mentor Award, courtesy of Michael and Victoria Bershadsky, is awarded to David Darrow, who since 2021 has mentored for PRIMES USA, of which he is also a 2017 alum. His research interests include fluid dynamics, physical applied math, probability, and geometry.

Congratulations go out to David, Felix, Serina, and Vijay, and we also wish to thank Professor Lusztig and Michael and Victoria Bershadsky for making these mentorships possible!

Sigurdur Helgason, emeritus professor of mathematics at MIT, passed away on Sunday, December 3, 2023, at the age of 96.

For many decades, Sigurdur led the study of group actions on manifolds. Generations of mathematicians entered the field through his classic 1962 text Differential Geometry and Symmetric Spaces, and its greatly expanded 1978 second edition Differential Geometry, Lie Groups, and Symmetric Spaces. His own research contributions included the Plancherel and Paley-Wiener theorems for Riemannian symmetric spaces. He was a superb lecturer, a well-regarded graduate advisor, and a cherished colleague.

Sigurdur came to MIT as a CLE Moore Instructor in 1954. Following postdoctoral appointments at Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and Columbia University, he joined the MIT mathematics faculty in 1959. He officially retired from the faculty after 55 years in 2014.

Please read more about Sigurdur’s life and work here.

The Provost has selected Jörn Dunkel as the new MathWorks professor, taking over from Gil Strang.

Gil, the first holder of the Mathworks Professorship, recently retired after 61 years on our faculty. His last lecture in 18.06 was streamed live and has over 945,000 views.

Jörn also received the 2023 Schmidt Science Polymath award. For recently tenured professors with remarkable track records doing interdisciplinary research, the Schmidt Futures Foundation award include large grants to explore a “substantive disciplinary shift” soon after achieving tenure. (Also see MIT News story.)

Congratulations, Jörn and Gil!

Applied Mathematics Instructor Karol Bacik, who recently joined us this fall, has received the American Physical Society’s 2023 Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics, in recognition of his groundbreaking experimental and theoretical work on the dynamics of underwater sand dunes.

Congratulations, Karol!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congratulations, Daniel, Isaac, Saba, and Yihang!

Quanta Magazine’s story on the telescope conjecture highlights recent work by Jeremy Hahn, the Rockwell International Career Development Assistant Professor of Mathematics, along with PhD student Ishan Levy, Robert Burklund PhD ’22, and Tomer Schlank, a recent visiting associate professor. The four mathematicians presented their research at the birthday conference for former MIT Math Professor Michael Hopkins, Hahn’s advisor at Harvard.

In the late 1980s, Hopkins had proved six of seven conjectures by Doug Ravenel of the University of Rochester; the seventh was the telescope conjecture. At the conference, the quartet presented their proof that the telescope conjecture was false, making it the only one of Ravenel’s original conjectures not to be true.

This finding means that “The universe of different shapes is far more complicated than mathematicians anticipated,” according to the article.

Videos of their talks can be found here.

Professor Davesh Maulik was selected to receive a 2023 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 belongs to a 16-member cohort of 2023 Simons Investigators in Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics, and Computer Science.

Past Simons investigators in our Department are, in chronological order, Paul Seidel, Larry Guth, Bjorn Poonen, Elchanan Mossel, Zhiwei Yun, Alexei Borodin, and Wei Zhang.

Read more in the MIT News.

Congratulations, Davesh!

The MIT Corporation Executive Committee has approved the promotion of Tristan Collins to associate professor. He is now the Class of 1948 Career Development Associate Professor.

Congratulations, Tristan!

CLE Moore instructor Tristan Ozuch-Meersseman and alum John Urschel PhD ’21 joined our faculty as assistant professors as of July 1.

Before Tristan joined us in 2020 as an instructor, he received his PhD in mathematics at École Normale Supérieure, where he was advised by Olivier Biquard. His research is focused on geometric analysis and particularly on Einstein manifolds and Ricci flows.

John's research is focused on numerical linear algebra, spectral graph theory, and theoretical machine learning, with an emphasis on theoretical results and provable guarantees. After graduating from MIT in 2021, he worked with Peter Sarnak as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study and was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University.

Congratulations, John and Tristan!

The Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected 33 mathematics majors, among 102 electees from MIT's Class of 2023, 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.

Full list of Mathematics Inductees

Congratulations to our newest members of Phi Beta Kappa!

Third-years Rupert Li & Audrey Xie each received a Barry Goldwater Scholarship for 2022-2023. Rupert is mentored by professors Henry Cohn, Joseph Gallian of University of Minnesota Duluth, and James Propp of UMass-Lowell. Audrey is working on research related to the latent spaces of generative models and last year developed methods for gradient-based hyperparameter adaptation as part of Professor Jonathan Ragan-Kelly's group at CSAIL. They were among 413 college students selected on the basis of academic merit, from a nationwide field of candidates.

Congratulations, Audrey and Rupert!

The Department of Mathematics recognized four math community members with Teaching and Learning awards for their contributions to teaching, mentoring, and student support in our math subjects.

Math majors Gabrielle Kaili-May Liu and Esha Bhatia were recognized for their work as a PRIMES Circle mentor and 18.03 teaching assistant, respectively.

Giada Franz taught her first MIT class, 18.100B, and Andrew Horning was the primary instructor for 18.335 while also co-teaching 18.06 with nearly 500 students.

Congratulations, Andrew, Esha, Gabrielle, and Giada!

Graduate student Alasdair Hastewell ’18 is the recipient of the inaugural David J. Benney Prize.

This award recognizes excellence in applied mathematics, with preference given to students in physical applied math, computational science, numerical analysis, computational biology, or theoretical physics. Alasdair is a PhD candidate in Jörn Dunkel’s group.

This award honors David Benney, an applied math professor who died in 2015. Benney chaired the Applied Mathematics Committee from 1983-1985, and served as Department Head for two terms, 1989-1999.

Congratulations, Alasdair!

The 2023 Charles and Holly Housman Awards for Excellence in Teaching was awarded to graduate students Yan Sheng Ang (18.03 recitation instructor as well as the Communication-Intensive Project Lab, 18.821 TA), Yuqiu Fu (recitation leader for our Communication-Intensive Real Analysis class 18.100P), and Tang-Kai Lee (18.02 TA).

This award is presented to graduate students in mathematics for their skill and dedication in undergraduate teaching.

Congratulations, Tang-Kai, Yan Sheng, and Yuqiu!

The 2023 Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize, for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal, has been awarded to graduate student Andrew Salmon for his paper “Unipotent nearby cycles and cohomology of shtukas” in Compositio Mathematica, Volume 159, Issue 3, March 2023, pages 590–615.

Congratulations, Andrew!

Professor Philippe Rigollet 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 1983-1985, this award is presented to a faculty member who demonstrates unbounded compassion and dedication toward students.

Congratulations, Philippe!

Three students recently received the Peter Baddoo Community Building Award, for individuals who have made significant contributions to building and strengthening our MIT Math community.

Senior Chirag Falor was awarded for his work as the Undergraduate Mathematics Association Social Chair. “From organizing study groups and workshops to coordinating social activities, Chirag has consistently put in tremendous effort to ensure that students feel supported and connected,” says one nominator.

Graduate students Nitya Mani and Serina Hu received this award for their work in organizing the department retreat, which usually is the work of at least five people.

This award is named in honor of Peter Baddoo, a Department instructor who was 29 when he died on February 15. Baddoo received the Community Building Award in 2022 for helping to organize tea and coffee hours for the postdoc community.

Congratulations, Chirag, Serina, and Nitya!

The 2023 Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathematics has been awarded to senior math majors, from left, Carl Schildkraut, Anqi Li, and Daniel Zhu, for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, and enthusiasm for mathematics.

Congratulations to all!

Math major Tianyuan (Margaret) Zheng ’23, who is also majoring in Computer Science, Economics, and Data Science (6-14) and minoring in Music (21M), was chosen for the 2023 Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Award by the Arts at MIT Student Art Awards Committee.

Zheng’s artistic involvement on campus is multi-faceted; she is best known for bringing to life Wide Tim, the illustrated incarnation of MIT’s mascot Tim the Beaver. “My vision for Wide Tim is that he’s a very happy, very positive character,” says Zheng.

Her goal is to “spread joy and raise awareness of art and culture aspects of MIT student life,” she says. As of May 2023, she has created more than 130 artworks and collaborated with more than 35 MIT departments and organizations.

Established by the Council for the Arts at MIT in 1979, these awards honor past MIT President Jerome B. Wiesner and Laya Wiesner for their commitment to the arts at MIT.

Read more about Margaret’s award and about her efforts in MIT Technology Review and MIT News.

Congratulations, Margaret!