News Archive

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!

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!

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!

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!

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

Congratulations Jared and Gonçalo!

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!

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.

...Full List of Awards

Congratulations Tom and Mike!

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.

Full List of Mathematics Inductees

Congratulations Electees!

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.

...Full List of New Fellows

Congratulations Pavel!

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!

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.

...Full List of Winners

Congratulations!

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.

MIT News

Completed Building Photos

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!

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!

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.

Congratulations Ankur and Vadim!

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!

Our 2015 Newsletter 1ntegraL is Out!

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!

Professor Bonnie Berger has been elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows . AIMBE Fellows are the most distinguished and outstanding bioengineers, representing the top 2% of the medical and biological engineering community.

Congratulations Bonnie!

Professor Bonnie Berger has been awarded an Honorary doctorate from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne at their 2015 graduation ceremeony.

Congratulations Bonnie!

MIT Class of 2015 Math Major Amol Aggarwal has won the 2016 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student . Now a PhD student at Harvard University, Amol's research focuses on combinatorics.

Congratulations Amol!

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!

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!

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!

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.

MIT News Article

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!

A biographical memoir on the late MIT Mathematics Professor George W. Whitehead, Jr, authored by Haynes Miller , has just appeared as one of some twenty such memoirs published annually by the National Academy of Sciences .

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.

Congratulations Nadia, Katrine and Priya!

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.

Read Full Article

Ann Beha Architects , the firm responsible for the renovation of Building 2, has been named one of the top 50 firms of 2015 by Architect Magazine . Rankings are based on scores in the categories of business, sustainability and design.

Building 2 Renovation

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.

MIT News Article

Congratulations Alexei!

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!

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!

Full List of Winners

Congratulations Noah and Peter!

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 .

Read Full Article

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!

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!

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!

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

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

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!

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!

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!

The MIT Math Department presents its very first MOOC (massive open online course) on edX. This free, 13 week Calculus 1A course is taught by David Jerison , Gigliola Staffilani , Jen French and Stephen Wang .

Visit the Course Website

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!

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

Congratulations Laurent!

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

Congratulations Ruthi!

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

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

Congratulations!

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!

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!

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!