Mathematics People
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NEWS Mathematics People 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 Computer Science: Mathematics: Scott Aaronson of the University of Texas at Austin Simon Brendle of Columbia University 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 Harvard University has worked on cryp- formation in the mean curvature flow, the Yamabe flow, tography, computational complexity, and algorithms. He and the Ricci flow. 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 Princeton University 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 Northwestern University has devel- Physics: oped theories of signaling and social aggregation in the Shamit Kachru of Stanford University 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 United States 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 India. 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