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string theory to predictions for cosmological observables, Simons Foundation with implications for dualities, space-time singularities, Investigators Named and black hole physics. Her work on axion monodromy provided a theoretically consistent model of large-field The Simons Foundation has named the Simons Investiga- inflation. tors for 2017. Theoretical : : Scott Aaronson of the University of Texas at Austin Simon Brendle of has achieved has established fundamental theorems in quantum com- major breakthroughs in geometry, including results on putational complexity and inspired new research direc- the Yamabe compactness conjecture, the differentiable tions at the interface of theoretical computer science and sphere theorem (joint with R. Schoen), the Lawson con- the study of physical systems. jecture, and the Ilmanen conjecture, as well as singularity Boaz Barak of has worked on cryp- formation in the mean curvature flow, the Yamabe flow, tography, computational complexity, and algorithms. He and the . developed new non-black-box techniques in cryptography Ludmil Katzarkov of the University of Miami has in- and new semidefinite programming-based algorithms troduced novel ideas and techniques in geometry, proving for problems related to machine learning and the unique long-standing conjectures (e.g., the Shavarevich conjec- games conjecture. ture) and formulating new conceptual approaches to open James R. Lee of the University of Washington is one questions in homological mirror symmetry, rationality of of the leaders in the study of discrete optimization prob- algebraic varieties, and symplectic geometry. lems and their connections to analysis, geometry, and Igor Rodnianski of is a leading probability. His development of spectral methods and his figure in the field of partial differential equations. He has work on convex relaxations has led to breakthroughs in recently proven theorems concerning the full nonlinear characterizing the efficacy of mathematical programming dynamics of the Einstein equations, in both the weak for combinatorial optimization. and strong field regimes, and has obtained new results Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems: regarding gravitational radiation associated to black hole Arvind Murugan of the University of Chicago works space times. on how organisms enhance information uptake from the Allan Sly of the University of California, Berkeley has environment by using inference from past experience resolved long-standing open problems on the computa- and has applied such ideas to self-assembly dynamics, tional complexity of phase transitions and on the dynam- olfaction, circadian clocks, and stress-response pathways. ics of the Ising model. David Schwab of has devel- Physics: oped theories of signaling and social aggregation in the Shamit Kachru of has done work social amoeba Dictyostelium and has shown how tensor- that includes the discovery of string dualities in N = 2 network methods from computational quantum physics supersymmetry; foundational studies of flux compactifica- can be used in machine learning. tion of string theory; mathematical studies of connections Aryeh Warmflash of Rice University has developed between automorphic forms, black holes, and string vacua; systems to mimic embryonic development in vitro using and quantum field theories describing “non-Fermi-liquid” human embryonic stem cells and is developing dynamical behavior in condensed matter physics. system models of cell fate patterning and morphogenesis Anders Sandvik of Boston University is widely recog- that can be rigorously compared with quantitative data on nized for his development of stochastic series expansion in vitro development. methods for quantum problems and for his creative ap- Daniel Weissman of Emory University has shown plications of these and related methods to topics includ- that the generation of “irreducible complexity” happens ing deconfined quantum criticality and optimization most frequently in large populations and that the speed problems. of adaptation is limited by the frequency of genetic re- Eva Silverstein of Stanford University has done combination. research that connects the mathematical structure of

November 2017 Notices of the AMS 1211 Mathematics People NEWS

Math + X: Eduardo Teixeira obtained his PhD from the University Andrea Bertozzi of the University of California, of Texas at Austin in 2005 under the direction of Luis Caf- Los Angeles, has contributed to many areas of applied farelli. He held a three-year Hill assistant professorship mathematics, including the theory of swarming behavior, position at Rutgers University. In 2008 he returned to his aggregation equations and their solution in general dimen- native country, with the ambition to further contribute sion, the theory of particle-laden flows in liquids with free to the development of the Brazilian mathematical com- surfaces, data analysis/image analysis at the micro and munity. He became assistant professor and subsequently nano scales, and the mathematics of crime. full professor of mathematics at the Universidade Federal Amit Singer of Princeton University is one of the lead- do Ceará, the same university from which he had obtained ers in the mathematical analysis of noisy data provided his BS degree. He was awarded the Mathematical Congress by cryo-EM. of the Americas Prize in 2013 and was elected permanent The Simons Investigators program provides a stable fellow of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2015. He base of support for outstanding scientists, enabling them has now returned to the as full professor of to undertake long-term study of fundamental questions. mathematics at the University of Central Florida. He tells —From a Simons Foundation announcement the Notices: “Today, as a researcher, I like to think about mathematics outside the formality of the office. Some of my most creative ideas came to me during leisure times. In particular, the insight of treating degenerate equations as Teixeira Awarded ICTP-IMU if it were a ‘nonphysical’ free boundary arrived to me when Ramanujan Prize I was playing with my daughter, Amanda, at the beach.” The Ramanujan Prize is awarded annually to a young Eduardo Teixeira of the Federal researcher from a developing country. The prize carries University of Ceará, Brazil, has been a cash award of US$15,000, and the recipient is invited to awarded the 2017 Ramanujan Prize deliver a lecture at ICTP. for Young Mathematicians from De- —From an ICTP-IMU announcement veloping Countries in recognition of his outstanding work in analysis and partial differential equations. The Lim Awarded Smale Prize prize is awarded by the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Lek-Heng Lim of the University of Physics (ICTP), the International Chicago has been awarded the third Eduardo Teixeira Mathematical Union (IMU), and the Stephen Smale Prize “for his out- Department of Science and Technol- standing contributions to the foun- ogy of the Government of . dations of computational mathemat- The prize citation reads: “Teixeira started working on ics. His work seamlessly integrates free boundary problems during his PhD thesis, proving scientific computing with complex- existence and regularity results, and obtaining qualitative ity theory, statistical data analysis, properties of solutions, in the theory of nonlinear heat and pure mathematics.” He received conduction. Subsequently, in collaboration with L. Zhang, his PhD in computational and math- he obtained Almgren’s type frequency formulas in Rieman- Lek-Heng Lim ematical engineering from Stanford nian manifolds. He then introduced an original approach University. He joined the faculty at to the regularity of degenerate elliptic equations, which Chicago in 2010, after serving as Charles Morrey Assistant consists in viewing the set of critical points of a solution Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Lim tells as a free boundary. This interesting point of view led him the Notices: “I am a bit of a bibliophile. I particularly like to prove the continuity conjecture for elliptic equations Taipei, a city that still has many brick-and-mortar book- with high-order singular structures, and in solving, in stores, some of which are open twenty-four hours. I am collaboration with Araujo and Urbano, a long-standing also a bit of a foodie. An appealing aspect of living in Chi- conjecture on the optimal regularity for the p-Laplacian in cago is that one can dine at a Michelin-starred restaurant for a little over $10, although that pales in comparison to two dimensions. Teixeira has contributed to many other Hong Kong and Singapore, where a Michelin-starred meal aspects of the theory of nonlinear elliptic equations. A can go for as low as $2. In part to burn off these calories, perfect example is his recent breakthrough, in collabora- I like biking and taking long walks with my wife along the tion with Y. Li and Z.-C. Han, on the asymptotic radial magnificent trails next to Lake Michigan, Shing Mun River, symmetry of solutions to the kth-order Yamabe equation or in the Singapore Botanic Gardens.” in punctured domains, a deep and original contribution The Smale Prize is awarded every three years by the So- to the theory of conformally nonlinear elliptic PDEs.” The ciety for the Foundations of Computational Mathematics. prize also recognizes his pursuit of high-level research —Elaine Kehoe in Brazil. At Ceará, he founded and directed one of the major research groups in partial differential equations in Latin America.

1212 Notices of the AMS Volume 64, Number 10 Mathematics People NEWS

Pipher received her PhD from the University of Califor- Duminil-Copin Awarded nia, Los Angeles and served on the faculty of the University Loève Prize of Chicago before joining Brown. She was the founding di- rector of the Institute for Computational and Experimental Hugo Duminil-Copin of the Insti- Mathematics at Brown University. She was a member of tut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques the inaugural class of fellows of the AMS and served as (IHES) Paris and the University of president of AWM. She will give the Noether Lecture at the Geneva has been awarded the 2017 2018 Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego, California. Loève International Prize in Prob- —From an AWM announcement ability. The prize citation reads in part: “He is best known for his early work on phase transitions in two- Koberda Awarded dimensional lattice models: the Ising and Potts models, and properties of 2017 Duszenko Prize Hugo percolation and self-avoiding walks. Thomas Koberda of the Univer- Duminil-Copin Within these intensively studied fields, he and coauthors proved a sity of Virginia has been awarded wide range of long-standing hard conjectures for topics the 2017 Kamil Duszenko Prize in including the connective constant of the honeycomb lat- Mathematics for his work on low- tice; critical points for random-cluster models; conformal dimensional topology and dynamics, invariance of the planar critical Ising and FK-Ising models; especially for a paper exploring con- continuity of phase transitions and spontaneous magneti- nections between right-angled Artin zation in such models; and growth constants and critical groups and mapping class groups. fugacity of self-avoiding walks. Other major results involve He received his PhD from Harvard sharp thresholds in more general settings, for bootstrap University in 2012 under the direc- percolation as well as Bernoulli percolation and Ising mod- Thomas Koberda tion of Curt McMullen. From 2012 els. Recently he and coauthors proved the long-standing to 2015 he was both an NSF postdoc Baxter's conjecture about continuity/discontinuity of and assistant professor at ; he joined the phase transition for the planar Potts model.” Duminil-Co- faculty at Virginia in 2015. He received a Sloan Research pin received his PhD in 2011 from the University of Geneva Fellowship in 2017. Koberda tells the Notices: “I enjoy run- under the direction of Stanislav Smirnov. The Loève Prize ning, cooking, and wine. In my spare time, I love to read is awarded every two years for outstanding contributions and to learn foreign languages.” in probability by researchers under the age of forty-five. The Duszenko Award is given by the Wrocław Mathema- —David Aldous, University of California, Berkeley ticians Foundation (WMF) for outstanding work or research that has significantly contributed to the deepening of knowledge and further progress in the field of mathemat- ics. It was founded in honor of Kamil Duszenko, a young Pipher Named mathematician who died of acute lymphoblastic leukemia 2018 Noether Lecturer at the age of twenty-eight. It will be given at least every two years in the fields of mathematics and hematology. Jill Pipher of Brown University —From a WMF announcement has been named the 2018 Noether Lecturer by the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and the AMS. She was honored “for her profound impact on mathematics, both through her work in the fields of harmonic analysis and partial dif- ferential equations and through her service to the profession.” According Jill Pipher to the prize citation, Pipher “is best known for her fundamental contri- butions to solutions and regularity of partial differential equations in minimally smooth domains”—for example, in her work with Verchota that “settled a long-standing conjecture on the solvability of the Dirichlet problem with L2 boundary data on bounded Lipschitz domains.” She has also done groundbreaking work in cryptography.

November 2017 Notices of the AMS 1213 Mathematics People NEWS 2017 Dirac Medals Awarded MAA Awards Presented The Dirac Medals for 2017 have The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) awarded been awarded by the International several writing and education prizes at its summer Math- Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Fest. The Carl B. Allendoerfer Awards for excellent math- to Charles H. Bennett of the IBM ematical writing published in Mathematics Magazine were Watson Research Center, David given to Brian Conrey and Kent Morrison of the Ameri- Deutsch of Oxford University, and can Institute of Mathematics, along with James Gabbard, Peter W. Shor of the Massachusetts University of Southern California; Katie Grant, University Institute of Technology “for their of California San Diego; and Shang-Chi Andrew Liu, pioneering work in applying the University of California Los Angeles, all for the article David Deutsch fundamental concepts of quantum “Intransitive Dice.” Vladimir Pozdnyakov, University mechanics to solving basic problems of Connecticut, and Michael Steele, University of Penn- in computation and communication sylvania, were honored for their article “Buses, Bullies, and Bijections.” and therefore bringing together the The Trevor Evans Award for excellent writing for an fields of quantum mechanics, com- undergraduate audience published in Math Horizons was puter science, and information.” Ac- awarded to Cornelia A. Van Cott of the University of cording to the prize citation, Bennett for her article “A Pi Day of the Century “proved that classical computation Every Year.” can be done without consumption The Paul R. Halmos–Lester R. Ford Awards for excep- of energy by inventing what is now tional authors published in the American Mathematical known as reversible classical com- Monthly were given to the following: Harold P. Boas, Texas A&M University, for his article “Mocposite Func- putation”; Deutsch “invented the no- tions”; Adrien Kassel, Ecole Normale Supérieure, and tion of a quantum Turing machine, Peter W. Shor David B. Wilson, Microsoft Research, for their article the concept of the quantum logic “The Looping Rate and Sandpile Density of Planar Graphs”; gate and quantum circuit, as well as the network model of Deborah Kent, Drake University, and David Muraki, computations”; and Shor “consolidated the field of quan- Simon Fraser University, for “A Geometric Solution of a tum computation by designing the quantum algorithm Cubic by Omar Khayyam … in which Colored Diagrams Are for factoring large numbers.” The medals are awarded Used Instead of Letters for the Greater Ease of Learners”; to scientists who have made significant contributions to and Lawrence Zalcman, Bar-Ilan University, for “A Tale theoretical physics and carry a cash award of US$5,000. of Three Theorems.” The George Pólya Awards for exceptional papers pub- —From an ICTP announcement lished in the College Mathematics Journal were awarded to Viktor Blåsjö, Mathematical Institute of Utrecht Uni- versity, for “How to Find the Logarithm of Any Number 2017 Mathematical Using Nothing but a Piece of String” and Travis Kowalski, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, for “The Olympiad Results Sine of a Single Degree.” The Merten M. Hasse Prize, for a noteworthy paper The team from South Korea finished first in the Fifty- published by the MAA of which at least one of the authors eighth International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in Rio is a younger mathematician, was awarded to Lasse Rempe- de Janeiro, Brazil. All six team members won gold medals. Gillen, University of Liverpool, and Zhaiming Shen, a China finished second, followed by Vietnam, the United graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, for States, and Iran. Three of the US team members were their paper “The Exponential Map Is Chaotic: An Invitation awarded gold medals: Ankan Bhattacharya, Andrew to Transcendental Dynamics” published in the American Gu, and James Lin. Zachary Chroman, Vincent Huang, Mathematical Monthly. The Daniel Solow Author’s Award recognizes authors and Junyao Peng received silver medals. Ankan also won of undergraduate mathematics teaching materials. The a gold medal at the 2016 IMO and was the 2016 national 2017 inaugural recipient is Ted Sundstrom of Grand Who Wants to Be a Mathematician champion. The 2018 Valley State University for Mathematical Reasoning: Writ- Mathematical Olympiad will be held in in July ing and Proof. 2018. The Henry L. Alder Awards honor beginning college —From MAA announcements or university faculty members whose teaching has been highly effective and successful in teaching undergraduate mathematics. The 2017 recipients are Steven Klee of Se- attle University, who is known for seamlessly incorporat-

1214 Notices of the AMS Volume 64, Number 10 Mathematics People NEWS ing undergraduate research into his classroom curriculum •• Sylvester Eriksson-Bique (New York University), and mentoring student researchers who go on to publish University of California, Los Angeles and present their work; and Mary Beisiegel of Oregon •• Alexandra Florea (Stanford University), University State University for her superb teaching, cultivating en- of Bristol gaging classrooms, and her work building up professional •• Evan Gawlik (Stanford University), University of Cali- development among her teaching peers. fornia, San Diego The Mary P. Dolciani Award was presented to Tatiana •• Allen Gehret (Univerity of Illinois at Urbana—Cham- Shubin of San Jose State University for her devotion to paign), University of California, Los Angeles mathematical education at the K–12 student level, bringing •• Nate Harman (Massachusetts Institute of Technol- Math Circles to new communities, particularly indigenous ogy), University of Chicago populations. •• Sean Howe (University of Chicago), Stanford University The Awards for Meritorious Service are presented for •• Peter Jantsch (University of Tennessee), Texas A&M service at the national level or to a section of the MAA. University The awardees are James Alvarez, University of Texas at •• Lien-Yung Kao (University of Notre Dame), University Arlington; Scott Hochwald, University of North Florida; of Chicago Heidi Keck, Western Colorado State University; Jason •• Casey Kelleher (University of California, Irvine), Molitierno, Sacred Heart University; and Gerard A. Princeton University Venema, Calvin College. •• Alisa Knizel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), —From an MAA announcement Columbia University •• Brian Lawrence (Stanford University), Columbia University •• Oleg Lazarev (Stanford University), Columbia *NSF Postdoctoral Research University Fellowships Awarded •• Daniel Le (University of Chicago), University of Toronto •• Caitlin Leverson (Duke University), Georgia Institute The Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow- of Technology ship Program of the Division of Mathematical Sciences •• Christopher Lopez (University of California, Irvine), (DMS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards University of California, Santa Barbara fellowships each year for postdoctoral research in pure •• László M. Lovász (Massachusetts Institute of Techno- mathematics, applied mathematics and operations re- logy), University of California, Los Angeles search, and statistics. Following are the names of the •• Kyle J. Luh (Yale University), Harvard University fellowship recipients for 2017, together with their PhD •• Olya Mandelshtam (University of California, Berke- institutions (in parentheses) and the institutions at which ley), Brown University they will use their fellowships. •• Anna Medvedovsky (Brandeis University), Max Planck •• Kenneth Ascher (Brown University), Massachusetts Institute for Mathematics Institute of Technology •• Oliver Pechenik (University of Illinois at Urbana— •• Maxime Bergeron (University of British Columbia), Champaign), University of Michigan University of Chicago •• Thomas Polstra (University of Missouri), University •• Zarathustra Brady (Stanford University), of Utah Massachusetts Institute of Technology •• Rohini Ramadas (University of Michigan), Harvard •• William Chan (California Institute of Technology), University University of North Texas •• Eric Ramos (University of Wisconsin—Madison), Uni- •• Laura Cladek (University of Wisconsin), University of versity of Michigan British Columbia •• Donald Robertson (Ohio State University), University •• Erin Compaan (University of Illinois Urbana— of Utah Champaign), Massachusetts Institute of Technology •• Elina Robeva (University of California, Berkeley), •• Jennifer Crodelle (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Massachusetts Institute of Technology Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York •• Casey Rodriguez (University of Chicago), Massachu- University setts Institute of Technology •• Theodore Drivas (Johns Hopkins University), Prince- •• Henri Roesch (Duke University), University of Califor- ton University nia, Irvine •• Max Engelstein (University of Chicago), Massachusetts •• Nicholas Salter (University of Chicago), Harvard Institute of Technology University •• Kevin Schreve (University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee), *The most up-to-date listing of NSF funding opportunities from University of Michigan—Ann Arbor the Division of Mathematical Sciences can be found online at: •• Alexander Shapiro (University of California, Berke- www.nsf.gov/dms and for the Directorate of Education and ley), University of Toronto Human Resources at www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=ehr. •• Matthew Stoffregen (University of California, Los To receive periodic updates, subscribe to the DMSNEWS listserv by Angeles), Massachusetts Institute of Technology following the directions at www.nsf.gov/mps/dms/about.jsp.

November 2017 Notices of the AMS 1215 Mathematics People NEWS

•• Arnav Tripathy (Stanford University), Harvard Uni- biology, history and philosophy of science, and educa- versity tion. His book Grammars and Finite Automata (1964, in •• Dootika Vats (University of Minnesota), University Romanian) is arguably the first monograph devoted to of Warwick regular languages. He authored three pioneering books in •• Ian Zemke (University of California, Los Angeles), mathematical and poetics: Introduction mathé- Princeton University matique à la linguistique structurelle (1967), Algebraic —NSF announcement Linguistics; Analytical Models (1967), and Mathematische Poetik (1973). His book Words and Languages Everywhere (2007) includes a collection of papers in language theories. In a letter to the editor (Notices, 2009) on F. Dyson’s Hidden Figures Honored “Birds and Frogs,” he proposed a more refined typology of with Book Award mathematicians inspired by F. Bacon’s 1620 Novum Orga- num: ants, spiders, and bees. Ants (such as A. Zygmund) Author Margot Lee Shetterly has received the 2017 remain involved in one particular field, compensating by Communication Award for Books from the National Acad- depth the lack of diversity; spiders (such as G. Cantor) emies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for Hidden propose a personal construction, with little reference to Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the anybody else; and bees (such as P. Erdo˝s) constantly move Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space from problem to problem. He concluded with a few open Race. The citation cites the book as “a hitherto little-known problems, such as “Can we transfer these metaphors from episode in the history of pioneering aerospace engineer- individuals to historical periods?” ing and computing brought to light so engagingly that crossed many frontiers, geographical [it], along with the blockbuster movie it inspired, has and transdisciplinary, and acquired not only erudition but had an unprecedented impact on the American public.” also encyclopedic knowledge. As a public intellectual, he The film made from the book was a finalist in the Film/ saved gifted scientists and scholars from marginalization. Radio/TV category. The communication awards, each of With equal ease, in his impeccable French, he magisterially which includes a US$20,000 prize, recognize excellence debated the great French virologist Luc Montagnier a few in reporting and communicating science, engineering, years ago, on the stage of the Ateneul Român. and medicine to the general public. A review of the film Marcus was a member of the . He appeared in the June/July 2017 issue of the Notices. It can received many prizes, including the Royal Decoration of be retrieved at www.ams.org/publications/journals/ Nihil Sine Deo and the Star of Romania, Romania’s high- notices/201706/rnoti-p620.pdf . est civil order. —From a National Academies announcement In his long career Marcus inspired, stimulated, encour- aged, and advised many students, undergraduate and graduate, in Romania and abroad, to do mathematical research and, in the last decades, interdisciplinary studies. Solomon Marcus (1925–2016) His sixteen PhD students form a small part of this group. Solomon Marcus was a prolific His 10-kilometer daily walk—his “constitutional”—may and influential mathematician and well have been one of the secrets of his great vitality and interdisciplinary researcher who forward-looking exuberance. passionately worked until the end He was never bored; he never felt the need of a proper of his life. In the first ten years of vacation. In his last telephone conversation with Cristian his research career, he published Calude, when he was in the hospital, Solomon Marcus’s almost 100 papers in mathematical strongest desire was to get back to work. analysis, set theory, measure and —, Northwestern University integration theory, and topology, Cristian S. Calude, University of Auckland, including a joint paper with P. Erdo˝s, Photo Credits Solomon Marcus “Sur la décomposition de l’espace Photo of Eduardo Teixeira courtesy of Eduardo Teixiera. Euclidien en ensembles homogènes” Photo of Lek-Heng Lim by Sou-Cheng Choi. (1957). He completed his studies in mathematics at the Photo of Hugo Duminil-Copin by Marie-Claude Vergne (IHES). University of , earning a PhD in 1956 (with the Photo of Jill Pipher ©Brown University. thesis Monotone Functions of Two Variables—in Romanian) Photo of Thomas Koberda by Angelo Mao. under the supervision of M. Nicolescu and a State Doctor- Photo of David Deutsch by Lulie Tanett. ate in Sciences in 1968. Photo of Peter W. Shor courtesy of Charles H. Bennett. In the 1950s, the young Assistant Professor Solomon Photo of Solomon Marcus ©Alexander Okhotin, used under the Marcus enchanted his students with the wealth of exam- GFDL. ples and problems that he brought to the analysis seminar. From 1964 on he published many papers and books in theoretical computer science, linguistics, poetics and theory of literature, semiotics, cultural anthropology,

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