2007 Integral
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Autumn 2007 Volume 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1ntegral news from the mathematics department at mit Inside • New faculty • Leighton and Akamai • Awards and achievements • Campaign for Math update • The UMO • Faculty chairs 7 • Project Laboratory • News bits • Putnam Competition • Simons Lectures Dear Friends, Welcome to the second edition of Integral, Speaking of undergraduate education, a careers. That conference is planned for our department’s annual newsletter. major MIT task force has just completed April 12-13, 2008, and will follow a A year has flown by since we published a comprehensive review of the General meeting of the department’s Visiting our inaugural edition in September 2006. Institute Requirements (GIRs) that shape Committee. Much has happened and much more is the undergraduate experience of all MIT planned. students and it has made recommendations Thanks to the overwhelming support for various changes in these requirements. of our alumni and other friends, our First of all, we’ve had an ambitious recruit- MIT faculty and administrators are cur- $15 million fundraising “Campaign for ment effort and are delighted to be rently reviewing these proposed changes, Mathematics” has been going exceedingly welcoming six new faculty to the depart- some of which will undoubtedly be imple- well. At the present time, we are 90 percent ment this year: Professors Paul Seidel mented. Our department is considering the of the way to our goal, so that means you and James McKernan; tenured Associate impact of these changes on our programs still have time to participate and we hope Professors Ju-Lee Kim and Jacob Lurie; and whether we ought to review our own you do! Please look inside for additional and Assistant Professors Jon Kelner and offerings and requirements. Feel free to details. Abhinav Kumar. You can learn more send ideas about restructuring our math- about them and about their mathematics ematics major programs directly to me at As we move forward and look toward an on page 2. [email protected]. unusually high number of faculty eligible for retirement over the next few years, The job market for mathematicians is This year, the huge turnouts for our we are planning to continue our active quite strong these days, a big change from Simons lectures given by Terry Tao and recruitment efforts. To that end, we are what I remember back in the 1970s, when David Donoho necessitated finding larger also thinking about the directions within jobs were few and far between. Now we lecture halls. MIT helped with publicity mathematics that we want to develop within face very tough competition from other by spotlighting the series on the main the department. The MIT administration great mathematics departments for Institute home page. The Simons lecturers has been tremendously supportive of our top people, yet we’ve been remarkably next spring will be John Conway and efforts and we have a close relationship successful. We are excited about the Peter Teichner. In the fall term, Assaf with the new dean of science, Marc Kastner. diversity of experience they will bring Naor of New York University’s Courant Our future looks very bright indeed. to our community, and we are proud to Institute of Mathematical Sciences will welcome them to MIT. give the Wiener Lectures. Our fantastic students are another source We’re in the early stages of planning a of great pride. With the stunning achieve- conference for women mathematics ments of our undergraduate students on PhDs who are graduate and undergraduate Michael Sipser the Putnam and MCM competitions, and alumnae of the MIT Department of Department Head the spectacular successes of our graduate Mathematics. Participants will speak about students at getting offers of the very best their research, and will lead panel discus- faculty positions, we know we’re doing sions of their individual experiences of something right. what helped or hindered them in their Mathematics welcomes six new faculty James McKernan, Professor of Mathematics, is a major figure in higher dimensional algebraic geometry. Paul Seidel, Professor of Mathematics, is well known for his A recipient of a 2007 Clay Research outstanding work in symplectic topology, a field originating in the Award for his groundbreaking work with study of Hamiltonian mechanics and now connected to string Christopher Hacon on the Minimal theory. A recipient of the European Mathematical Society Prize Model Program, he earned a BA from in 2000, he received his Diploma from Heidelberg University Trinity College in 1985 and a PhD from in 1994 and the PhD from Oxford University in 1998. Harvard University in 1991. Jacob Lurie, Associate Professor of Mathematics with tenure, is a rising star in algebraic topology. A winner of several awards, including 1st place in the 1996 Westinghouse Science Talent Ju-Lee Kim, Associate Professor of Mathematics with tenure, Search, the 2000 Morgan Prize, and an AIM five-year fellowship has made important contributions to p-adic representation theory in 2004, he holds a BA from Harvard University in 2000 and a and harmonic analysis, with connections to the local Langlands PhD from MIT in 2004. program. Her undergraduate studies in the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology were completed in 1991 and she received her PhD from Yale University in 1997. Abhinav Kumar, Assistant Professor of Jonathan Kelner, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, is a Mathematics, works in number theory. theoretical computer scientist. Recipient of the 2002 David A 1998 IMO Gold Medalist and Putnam Mumford Award and the 2004 STOC best student paper award, Fellow in 1999 and 2000, he received he earned a BA from Harvard University in 2002 and a PhD his SB from MIT in 2002 and his PhD from MIT in 2006. from Harvard in 2006. Awards and achievements Tom Mrowka received the AMS Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry with Peter Kronheimer from Harvard, “for their joint contributions to both three and four- dimensional topology through the devel- opment of deep analytical techniques and applications.” Gil Strang received the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award, the ICIAM Su Buchin Prize and the ETH/SIAM Peter Henrici Peter Kronheimer and Tom Mrowka Prize for research in applied analysis Gilbert Strang and mathematics education worldwide. Peter Shor was named one of Caltech’s “Distinguished Alumni.” Eric Lauga received the Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics from the American Physical Society. Mark Behrens and Katrin Wehrheim both received Sloan Research Fellowships. Michel Goemans received a Guggenheim Fellowship in computer science. Victor Kaç and Tom Mrowka are newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. George Lusztig Victor Kaç received the Diploma of Academic Merit from the Romanian Academy. David Vogan has been appointed as the Robert Collins Distinguished Scholar. Peter Shor Associate Professors Martin Bazant and Alex Postnikov received tenure. Kiran Kedlaya was promoted to Associate Professor. Dan Kane ’07 was awarded the Bucsela Prize for outstanding MIT mathematics major. Dan also received the AMS-MAA- SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for outstanding undergraduate research in Mark Behrens mathematics. Yaim Cooper ’07 received the AMITA Senior Academic Award. She was also runner-up for the Schafer Prize for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics. Graduate student Pavlo Pylyavskyy was selected for a Clay Liftoff Fellowship. For their outstanding George Lusztig research papers, Silvia Montarani and Luis Rademacher each received the Charles and Jennifer Johnson Prize. Possible future Ilya Elson, with Jason Burns and Teena mathematician Gerhardt as runners-up, received the Ilaria Seidel, Charles and Holly Housman Award for daughter of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Paul Seidel and Graduate awards: Haynes Miller, Teena Michael Manapat received the Dean’s Ju-Lee Kim. Gerhardt, and Jason Burns. Education Award. Andrew Sutherland received an EECS Sprouls Award for an outstanding thesis in computer science. Staff member Kim Makara was awarded MIT’s Infinite Mile Award. Academic administrator Joanne Jonsson received the Dean’s Recognition Award. The UMO Project laboratory class creates “eureka!” moments for students Imagine a billiards table with no friction “The first thing to understand about these or spin. The ball is struck and hits the projects is that they are not well-defined,” sides in some sequence. What sequences Miller said. “Part of the challenge to the are theoretically possible? What if the students is to find an aspect of the problem table is triangular or pentagonal? that is interesting and approachable. So every time a team does a project it comes MIT students explored this scenario out differently.” recently through the Mathematics Project Laboratory. Projects are drawn from many mathemati- cal areas, including dynamical systems, Developed by Professors Michael Artin number theory, algebra, fluid mechanics, and Haynes Miller, the Mathematics asymptotic analysis, knot theory and Project Laboratory has no syllabus, no probability. Students choose from a The Undergraduate Mathematics Office, problem sets, and meets sporadically. selection of problems or design one one of the first offices for undergraduate Students, predominantly seniors, work of their own. During the semester, each administration at MIT and still one of in groups and select open-ended math- group of three students works on three the few Institute offices devoted solely to ematical questions to investigate. Experi- questions in which they design and run undergraduate education, was a revolu- ments are generally conducted on a experiments, analyze the results and tionary entity when Professor Arthur computer, but some students use old- present their findings to the class. Mattuck created it 30 years ago. Joanne fashioned paper and pencil. Jonsson and her colleagues, Debbie Bower, A recent project invited students to think Stephanie (Stevie) Gallarelli and Anna “I found that the class was an excellent through a mathematical model of water Ferrigno Ward now provide essential way to gain experience with working in a seeping through a sand bed.