Autumn 2010 Volume 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1ntegral n e w s f r o m t h e mathematics d e p a r t m e n t a t m i t

The retirement of seven of our illustrious col- leagues this year—Mike Artin, David Ben- Inside ney, Dan Kleitman, Arthur Mattuck, Is Sing- er, Dan Stroock, and Alar Toomre—marks • Faculty news 2–3 a shift to a new generation of faculty, from • Women in math 3 those who entered the field in the Sputnik era to those who never knew life without email • A minority perspective 4 and the Internet. The older generation built • Student news 4–5 the department into the academic power- house it is today—indeed they were the core • Funds for RSI and SPUR 5 of the department, its leadership and most • Retiring faculty and staff 6–7 distinguished members, during my early years at MIT. Now, as they are in the process • Alumni corner 8 of retiring, I look around and see that my con- temporaries are becoming the department’s Dear Friends, older group. Yikes! Another year gone by and what a year it Other big changes are in the works. Two of Marina Chen have taken the lead in raising an was. We’re getting older, and younger, cele- our dedicated long-term administrators— endowment for them. Together with those of brating prizes and long careers, remembering Joanne Jonsson and Linda Okun—have Tim Lu ’79 and Peiti Tung ’79, their commit- our past and looking to the future. It is a re- stepped down from their positions running ments thus far reach over $1 million, a mar- markable time to be in Mathematics at MIT. the undergraduate and graduate offices. velous contribution whose income will cover This year continues our drive to renew our We’ve reorganized and combined those en- nearly half the cost of both RSI and SPUR. faculty. Five superb mathematicians have tities into a single office, Mathematics Aca- We’re grateful for their help. recently accepted offers to join our faculty: demic Services, under the leadership of our As MIT prepares to celebrate its 150th anni- Professors (representation new Academic Administrator, Jeffrey Kinna- versary this year, plans are forming for re- theory and probability) and Peter Ozsváth mon. He and our new Administrative Officer, storing the main group of Buildings 1 thru 10 (geometric topology), and Assistant Profes- Sarah Smith, will be modernizing departmen- over the next decade or so. We are conduct- sors Clark Barwick (algebraic topology), tal processes by moving record-keeping into ing an architectural study of the department’s Jacob Fox (combinatorics), and Sug Woo electronic databases, among other things. home in Building 2 in preparation for its ren- Shin (number theory). We are strengthening The Simons Lectures will continue in fine ovation, the timing of which will depend in our ties outside the department with the joint form again this year. Princeton’s Manjul part on fundraising success. appointments of Associate Professors Martin Bhargava and Cornell’s Steven Strogatz will We want to thank the members of our Visit- Bazant and Peko Hosoi, with ChemE and speak in the series in April. ing Committee, which met with department MechE respectively, and the appointment of The opportunity to teach fantastic students is members last spring and favorably reviewed Adjunct Professor Henry Cohn from Micro- one of the many blessings of being at MIT, our programs. John Reed, who served as soft Research, New England. and this year was exceptionally good. We Chair of the Mathematics Visiting Commit- Broadening our department’s gender and awarded 23 PhDs, nearly all of whom are tee for the past decade, has moved on to be racial diversity will have renewed emphasis moving on to postdocs or other positions de- Chair of the MIT Corporation, wonderful in recruitment at all levels in coming years. spite the tough job market. Our undergradu- news for the Institute. We hope that John’s Noted authority William Vélez will be a ates claimed one-third of the top (Honorable yet-to-be-announced replacement on our Vis- Martin Luther King Visiting Professor of Mention and higher) scores across all of iting Committee will be as committed to the Mathematics this spring, and we will aim to North America in the 2009 Putnam Competi- department as he has been. st understand and emulate his striking success tion, and our team won 1 place. Look inside for further details on these and at bringing underrepresented minorities into Our RSI and SPUR summer research pro- other stories. Have a good year! mathematics at the University of Arizona. grams for high-school and undergraduate Toby Colding and Paul Seidel received the students continue to produce amazing results, 2010 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, a winning major prizes at the Intel and Siemens major recognition. Of the 27 individuals who Science Talent Searches. The department Michael Sipser have been honored with this prize since it currently supports these important programs Department Head was established in 1964, four are now on the with scarce discretionary funds, so we are MIT faculty. pleased to announce that Chi-Fu Huang and 2

New faculty Awards Alexei Borodin, Professor of Math- ematics, comes to MIT from Caltech, where he has been on the faculty since 2003. Borodin studies prob- lems on the interface of representa- tion theory and probability that link to combinatorics, random matrix the- ory, and integrable systems. In 2001 he received a long-term research fellowship from the Clay Mathemat- ics Institute. He was awarded the Prize of the Moscow Mathematical Society in 2003 and the Prize of the European Mathematical Society in 2008. Borodin received his PhD from the University of Pennsylva- Toby Colding and Paul Seidel received the 2010 AMS Oswald nia in 2001 under . Veblen Prize in Geometry, “awarded to Tobias H. Colding and William P. Minicozzi II for their profound work on minimal Peter Ozsváth, Professor of Mathemat- surfaces,” and for Paul Seidel’s “fundamental contributions to ics, joins the mathematics faculty this year. symplectic geometry and, in particular, for his development of A professor at Columbia University since advanced algebraic methods for computation of symplectic in- 2004, Ozsváth is a leading expert in low- variants.” John Bush was elected Fellow of the American Physi- dimensional geometric topology. In 2007, cal Society. Michael Artin, Tom Leighton, and Gil Strang were he received the AMS Oswald Veblen Prize each named SIAM Fellows. Tom Mrowka received a Guggen- in Geometry with Zoltán Szabó for their heim Fellowship. Katrin Wehrheim received an NSF PECASE work on a new class of invariants. He was a (Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers). Guggenheim Fellow in 2008 and appointed Denis Auroux, Alexei Borodin, Kiran Kedlaya, Ivan Loseu, a Clay Research Scholar at MSRI in the James McKernan, and Scott Sheffield gave invited lectures at spring of 2010. Ozsváth received his PhD ICM 2010. Richard Stanley gave the AMS Colloquium Lec- from Princeton under John Morgan in 1994. tures and Peter Shor the AMS Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecture at Clark Barwick, Assistant Profes- the 2010 joint AMS-MAA-SIAM meeting. Abhinav Kumar re- sor of Mathematics, joins our faculty ceived an NSF CAREER Award. Jon Kelner received a Sloan from , where he Research Fellowship. served as a Benjamin Peirce Lecturer. Katrin Wehrheim was promoted to Associate Professor. Barwick is an algebraic topologist in- terested in the interactions between Two of our staff were recognized for outstanding service this K-theory, homotopy theory, and al- year. Financial Administrator Danforth Nicholas received both gebraic geometry. He completed his the School of Science Infinite Kilometer Award and the MIT Ex- PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 2005 under Tony Pantev, cellence Award. Administrative Officer Sarah Smith received and subsequently held postdoctoral appointments at the Mathematics the School of Science Infinite Mile Award. Institute in Göttingen, the University of Oslo, and the IAS. Jacob Fox joins MIT as a Simons Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Other recent faculty appointments Professor of Applied Mathematics. Henry Cohn, Adjunct Professor. A Principal His interests span extremal combina- Researcher at Microsoft Research, New England, torics, combinatorial geometry, and Cohn works across several fields in discrete probabilistic combinatorics. A gradu- mathematics, including computational and ate of MIT, Fox received both the analytic number theory, algebraic combinatorics, department’s Jon A. Bucsela prize and theoretical computer science. and the AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie in 2006. He was recently awarded SIAM’s Dénes Anette (Peko) Hosoi, Associate Professor König Prize for outstanding research in discrete mathematics. He com- joint with Mechanical Engineering. Hosoi is pleted his PhD at under Benny Sudakov in 2010. interested in instabilities in viscous flows, low Sug Woo Shin will join us as Assistant Pro- Reynolds number locomotion, and bioinspired fessor of Mathematics in September 2011. design. A number theorist, Sug Woo specializes in the Langlands program, connecting arith- metic geometry and . Martin Bazant, Associate Professor joint He completed his PhD at Harvard Univer- with Chemical Engineering. Bazant’s interests sity under Richard Taylor in 2007, and sub- include nonlinear electrokinetics, microfluidics, sequently held a Clay Liftoff Fellowship at and granular flow. the IAS. He is currently appointed as a Dickson Instructor at the Uni- versity of Chicago and will return to the IAS in 2010–11. 3

Women in Math @ MIT by Genevieve Wanucha

concerns at the biannual tea parties to us- career possibilities in math. “But the math ing the resources on the new MIT Women community at MIT dispelled my fears,” she in Mathematics website. And everyone, says. “The most important thing for me was men and women, are encouraged to attend to see examples of successful female math the Women in Math lecture series, featur- majors and math professors — they helped ing female mathematicians from universi- me believe that I could do it too.” ties around the globe. Judging by the opinions and attitudes of the These lectures are a critical part of the MIT math department’s young women, it group’s aim. Wehrheim notices a perva- seems the faculty can expect a growing fe- sive culture of math talks that champion male presence in the top levels of research highly specialized research, at the expense mathematics. Maria Monks graduated this Women make up a quarter of the MIT math of students’ ability to understand and ask spring after winning a Hertz Foundation students, but the proportion of female math meaningful questions. These talks can eas- Fellowship and a Churchill Scholarship to professors over the past thirty years has ily alienate junior mathematicians unsure study at Cambridge University in England. never risen above seven percent. That’s why whether they belong in the discipline. Wehr- “I envision myself as a professor at a univer- Professors Katrin Wehrheim and Gigliola heim believes that talks by women foster sity down the road,” she says. This attitude, Staffilani have built their 2008 “Women in more open communication, a valuable ad- the group’s leaders believe, is exactly what Math” conference into a community net- dition to the culture of any academic field. makes an MIT graduate into a leading fig- work that supports the Institute’s female The group also helps students find female ure in mathematics. mathematicians. friends. Rosalie Belanger-Rioux, a PhD stu- Wehrheim and Staffilani want to make cer- dent who studies partial differential equa- tain that young women have everything tions, says, “I think the purpose of this is for they need to keep riding the wave of math- women not to feel alone in this area where math.mit.edu/wim ematical success to career-level research the large majority of faculty and students mathematics. “Rather than discussing are male. I find it refreshing to be among See our new “MIT Women in Mathe- whether we still have an equal opportunity women only, once in a while. It’s just dif- matics” website, featuring in-depth bi- problem, let’s do something,” Wehrheim ferent!” ographies, history, statistics, and recent says. “I want to just ask what’s going to ac- The students are living proof of Women events. We invite alumni to contribute tually help women make their way.” in Math’s importance. Sara Sheehan, a re- ideas, biographies, or simply a quote MIT women in math can benefit from the cent graduate with a degree in mathematics on life at or beyond MIT math! group in many ways, from sharing their and computer science, had concerns about New faculty professorships Toby Colding is the newly appointed honorary professorship at the University of Copenhagen in 2006. He Norman Levinson Professor of Math- was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences ematics. Colding is a leading differential in 2008. geometer, working on problems in geo- metric analysis, PDEs, and low-dimen- Benjamin Brubaker has been appointed sional topology. With Bill Minicozzi, he the Cecil and Ida Green Career Develop- received the 2010 Veblen Prize in Geom- ment Assistant Professor of Mathemat- etry from the AMS, “for their profound ics. Ben is a number theorist working in work on minimal surfaces.” analytic number theory and the theory of automorphic forms; his research also Colding joined the MIT mathematics draws on representation theory and com- faculty as Professor in 2005, coming binatorics. Among his contributions are from the Courant Institute, where he had been on the faculty since nonvanishing results for central values of 1995. He completed his PhD under Christopher Croke at the Univer- L-functions of twists of automorphic rep- sity of Pennsylvania in 1992, and did postdoctoral work at Courant resentations, and the development of the theory of multiple Dirichlet and MSRI. series with Bump, Friedberg, and Hoffstein. The latter line of research In addition to the recent Veblen Prize, Colding has received many has connections to many other areas within mathematics and phys- honors, including an invited address at ICM98 and at the Congress of ics, and in particular led recently to a link to crystal graphs. Ben is a the German Mathematical Society 2003. More recently, he gave the gifted teacher who has inspired hundreds of students in subjects such 2008 Mordell Lecture at the University of Cambridge and the 2010 as Fourier analysis, number theory and calculus. Ben received his PhD Cantrell Lectures at the University of Georgia. He is a foreign member from Brown in 2003 and was appointed Szegö Assistant Professor at of the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters and received an Stanford before coming to MIT in 2006. 4

A minority perspective Vélez raised this question in a talk entitled, ties need to shift. “Focusing on recruiting “The Mathematical Enterprise: A Minority faculty into faculty lines — that’s way too Perspective,” hosted by the MIT mathemat- long-range,” he said. Instead, “We really ics department on April 5, 2010. The event have to start paying attention to recruiting do- was attended by about 85 students, faculty, mestic students into our graduate programs.” and administrators, and was presented as part Vélez has been very active along these of the department’s ongoing effort to increase lines at the University of Arizona. “I send underrepresented minorities at all levels. out probably 5,000 messages a semester, A former president of the Society for Ad- telling students that I think they should be vancing Hispanics/Chicanos and Native William Vélez, Distinguished Professor of adding the math major; here’s the schedule Americans in Science (SACNAS), Vélez Mathematics at the University of Arizona, of courses; here’s some opportunities that made an important distinction: foreign-born wants to take the National Science Foun- would come your way by adding more math- students are not underserved minorities, even dation seriously when it comes to under- ematics to your undergraduate schedule.” if they are members of underrepresented represented minorities. “The NSF does Of course, he allowed, top mathematics de- groups. “I happen to think we should always have this strategic plan,” he says. “They partments want the best students. But what, have large numbers of international students recognize that the workforce of the United he asked, does best mean? “Could it mean in our graduate programs. But 50 percent” — States is aging, and that in order to meet the that best actually means what’s best for this roughly the current proportion of math PhDs demand, we need to bring in women and country? Should we bring in the best stu- granted to foreign-born students by U.S. uni- minorities and persons with disabilities versities — “I think represents a system that dents that would serve to motivate future into STEM careers. If we in the university is out of balance.” generations of mathematicians and scien- accept money from the National Science tists so that we have a more diverse culture Foundation, shouldn’t we also be support- Vélez believes that efforts by mathematics in our mathematics departments?” ing their strategic plan?” departments to recruit underserved minori- 2010 Doctorates Jeffrey Aristoff, “On Falling Spheres: the Dy- is now working at Bank of America/Merrill University, China. namics of Water Entry, and Descent along a Lynch in NYC. Peter McNamara, “Whittaker Functions on Flexible Beam,” under John Bush. Jeff is now Xia (Carol) Hua, “Testing Regression Models Metaplectic Groups,” under Ben Brubaker. a postdoc at Princeton. with Residuals as Data,” under Richard Dudley. Peter is now a postdoc at Stanford. Michael Baym, “Large, Noisy, and Incom- Xia is now working for Oracle in California. Karola Mészáros, “Root Polytopes, Trian- plete: Mathematics for Modern Biology,” un- Christopher Kottke, “Index Theorems and gulations, and Subdivision Algebras,” under der Bonnie Berger. Michael is now an NSF Magnetic Monopoles on Asymptotically Conic Richard Stanley. Karola will be a postdoc at mathematical science postdoc at Harvard Med- Manifolds,” under Richard Melrose. Chris is the University of Michigan next year. ical School. now a postdoc at Brown. Oaz Nir, “Single-cell Morphological Data Re- Damian Burch, “Intercalation Dynamics in Brian Lehmann, “Numerical Properties of veals Signaling Network Architecture” (in the Lithium-Ion Batteries,” under Martin Bazant. Pseudo-Effective Divisors,” under James field of Mathematics and Health Sciences and Damien is now an engineer at Exxon Mobil. McKernan. Brian is now an NSF postdoc at the Technology), under Bonnie Berger. Oaz is now L. Christopher Evans, “A Strong Maximum University of Michigan. at Hudson River Trading in NYC. Principle for Reaction-Diffusion Systems and Qian Lin, “Modules for Affine Lie Algebras at Angelica Osorno, “An Infinite Loop Space a Weak Convergence Scheme for Reflected the Critical Level and Quantum Groups,” un- Structure for K-theory of Bimonoidal Catego- Stochastic Differential Equations,” under Dan der Roman Bezrukavnikov. Qian is now work- ries,” under Mark Behrens. Angelica is now a Stroock. Chris is now a postdoc at the Univer- ing for Oracle in California. postdoc at the University of Chicago. sity of Missouri. Ricky Liu, “Specht Modules and Schubert Ana Rita Pissarra Pires, “Origami Mani- Martin Frankland, “Quillen Cohomology of Varieties for General Diagrams,” under Alex folds,” under Victor Guillemin. Ana Rita is a Pi-Algebras and Application to Their Realiza- Postnikov. Ricky is at the University of Min- Lecturer in the MIT Math Department. tion,” under Haynes Miller. Martin is now a nesota for the first year of his NSF postdoc, and Amanda Redlich, “Unbalanced Allocations,” postdoc at UIUC. will then transfer the remainder of his postdoc under Peter Shor. Amanda is an NSF postdoc Jennifer French, “Derived Mapping Spaces to the University of Michigan. at Rutgers. as Models for Localizations,” under Mark Beh- William Lopes, “The Seiberg-Witten Equa- Fang Wang, “Radiation Field for Einstein rens. Jennifer works freelance for Shmoop, an tions on a Surface Times a Circle,” under Tom Vacuum Equations,” under Richard Melrose. educational non-profit based in California. Mrowka. William is now at the University of Fang is a postdoc at Princeton. Matthew Gelvin, “Fusion Action Systems,” Chicago. Ting Xue, “Nilpotent Orbits in Characteristic under Haynes Miller. Matt is now a postdoc at Kevin Matulef, “Testing and Learning Bool- 2 and the Springer Correspondence,” under the University of Copenhagen. ean Functions,” under Ronitt Rubinfeld George Lusztig. Ting is a postdoc at North- Zhenqi He, “Odd Dimensional Symplectic (EECS). Kevin is now a postdoc at the Institute western. Manifold,” under Victor Guillemin. Zhenqi for Theoretical Computer Science at Tsinghua 5

Student awards 2009 Putnam triumphs Craig Desjardins and David Jordan received the Charles and Holly The MIT team placed first in the Housman Award for Excellence in undergraduate teaching. Roman 2009 William Lowell Putnam Travkin received the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize for his Mathematical Competition, the outstanding paper accepted for publication. Roman was also selected third time the team has placed for an Albert Memorial Fellowship by the Dean of Graduate Educa- first since 2000! The winning tion. Yufei Zhao ’10 received the Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Mathemat- team, seniors Qingchun Ren, Bo- ics for distinguished scholastic achievement, professional promise, hua Zhan, and Yufei Zhao, were and enthusiasm for mathematics. Yufei was also awarded the Gates mentored by Professor Richard Cambridge Scholarship for an outstanding student outside the UK to Stanley. study at the University of Cambridge. Charmaine Sia ’10 was a co- MIT’s winning team Once again, MIT undergraduate winner of the AWM Alice T. Schafer Prize for excellence in math- students dominated the competi- ematics by an undergraduate woman. Charmaine also received the tion overall, with a record one-third (28 out of 76) of the top scorers AMITA Senior Academic Award. Maria Monks ’10 received a Hertz (honorable mention and higher). Here are the juicy details: Fellowship, and Vinayak Muralidhar ’10 a Marshall Scholarship for graduate study in the UK. David Greenberg ’11 won the 2010 Laya Putnam Fellows: 2/5 Qingchun Ren, Yufei Zhao and Jerome B. Wiesner Awards in the Arts at MIT. Next twenty: 6/20 For their MIT RSI projects, high-schoolers Akhil Mathew and Lyn- Sergei Bernstein, Whan Ghang, Panupong Pasupat, Colin nelle Ye won third ($50,000) and fourth ($40,000) place respectively Sandon, Jacob Steinhardt, and Bohua Zhan in the Intel Science Talent Search. Lynnelle Ye also placed second Honorable Mentions: 20/56 ($50,000) in the 2009 Siemens Competition for her RSI project, and Arkhipov, Berman, Borsenco, Bujokas, Christiano, Deng, tied for second in the first Math Prize for Girls contest (co-organized Gupta, Hoch, Kishore, Lee, Liu, Luo, Oliveira Pinto, Rol- by Ravi Boppana, MIT PhD ’86). nick, Rush, Sankar, Schneider, Shi, Smith, and Yuan

Making a Difference Inspired by the experience of Raised during China’s Cultural their son (Matt Huang ’10) as Revolution, Tim Lu spent his a math major at MIT—and formative years working in a how important mathematics rural farm and factory. Lu came has been in their own lives— to MIT after studying at Tech- MIT parents Chi-Fu Huang nical University of Nova Scotia, and Marina Chen have spear- where math department head headed an initiative to endow Surain Sarwal recognized Lu’s the summer programs RSI and ability and called his former SPUR, pledging a major gift Chi-Fu Huang and Marina Chen Tim Lu with David Benney advisor, David Benney. Ben- and soliciting friends and col- ney, then head of the Applied leagues for additional support. To date, their campaign has raised Mathematics Group, became Lu’s thesis advisor. Lu now serves as more than $1 million, out of a $2.5 million goal. Peiti Tung ’79 (VI- a Managing Director and head of the Liability Management Group 3), SM ’80 (VI), and Tim Lu PhD ’92 (XVIII) were two of the first at Credit Suisse. When Chi-Fu Huang and Michael Sipser explained alumni and parents who have since joined this campaign. that the recession and cuts to the MIT operating budgets had placed Chen said she and Huang were inspired to support the department af- the summer programs in jeopardy, Lu says, “I knew then that I had to ter a meeting with department head Michael Sipser. “Mike articulated do something.” The support is from the Lu Maokang and Sun Rendi the need for supporting the summer research programs and made us Memorial Fund to honor his late parents, who were his very first edu- realize how important it was to continue cators, yet did not see his MIT graduation. nurturing these young talents.” “Mathematics is the mother of Peiti Tung had already established an “Mathematics,” Huang says, “permeates MIT scholarship honoring her father and both my academic and business careers.” all sciences. We, and many of had intended to continue supporting MIT While pursuing his PhD at Stanford, he our friends, directly or indirectly, through that fund. When Chen and Huang grew puzzled by a particular problem in fi- benefited in our careers from our approached her about joining them in the nancial economics. Realizing he lacked the campaign to support the math summer pro- mathematical knowledge to solve the prob- education in math.” grams, they told her that while “Asians are lem, he spent the next year taking graduate —Chi-Fu Huang well represented as students, they have not level math courses. He later made signifi- been as visible as donors supporting higher cant contributions to financial market re- education.” By joining them, Chen and search deploying stochastic processes. He was an MIT Sloan faculty Huang argued, Tung would draw greater awareness from their com- member for over ten years, and now serves as non-executive chair- munity and attract further support. Tung spent two weeks praying for man for the firm he co-founded, Platinum Grove Asset Management. guidance before deciding that “God loves math too!” 6

Changing of the guard: Seven faculty members retire

“When seven members of any department retire in the same year,” mittees and councils. They had edited prominent journals, written said Department Head Michael Sipser, “it’s got to be an event of influential textbooks, and transformed the teaching of mathematics. major significance. But when these particular seven colleagues Several retirees spoke at the occasion. Alar Toomre recalled his first of ours retire from this particular department in the same year, I days as an assistant professor at the department in 1963. “Toomre would say it’s truly a whopper of an occasion.” Sipser’s remarks here impresses me,” he remembered Department Head Ted Mar- introduced a retirement luncheon at the MIT Faculty Club on May th tin saying, “because he’s the first one whose nominal retirement 14 , attended by friends, colleagues, and family members of retir- date—if he makes it through tenure—would be in the 21st century.” ing professors Mike Artin, David Benney, Dan Kleitman, Arthur He praised Norman Levinson and others who “had the foresight to Mattuck, Is Singer, Dan Stroock, and Alar Toomre. The gathering actually construe applied mathematics broadly enough to include recognized a generational shift that was, Sipser the fluid dynamics of galaxies.” guessed, “unprecedented.” Danny Kleitman summed up his life as The longest-serving retirees had trod the halls “kind of a miracle,” as if “the world was set of Building 2 for over half a century. They up to make me fortunate.” Others seemed came from near and far: Brooklyn, Detroit, to view their impending retirement Germany, Estonia, and New Zealand. Four with a mixture of relief and are pure mathematicians, three are applied. alarm. “This Most were hired is a nice in the 1950s Mike Artin and Carolyn Artin event,” said and ’60s, Dan Stroock back when cheerfully, Ted Martin “and part of and Norman the curse of Levinson— it is taken off soon joined by sharing it Dan and Lucy Stroock, Victor Kac by the sage with so many counsel and others.” talent-spotting David and Liz Benney instincts Arthur of Is Mattuck charac- Singer— Danny Kleitman had been terized his busily en- five-plus gaged in decades on advancing the faculty the depart- as “in some ment from Joyce and Alar Toomre sense a cau- a service tionary tale,” role to the Arthur Mattuck including topmost tier “a few things of research may­be that I got right, but a lot of things I got and teaching departments in the country. Roman Bezrukavnikov, Pavel Etingof, wrong.” He spoke of changing fashions in Is Singer, Richard Melrose research and teaching and his own continued Their combined contributions to mathemat- efforts to adapt the department’s teaching ics and to MIT would take pages to describe. to the mathematics that MIT students needed They had held the department’s most pres­tigious professorships, and were developmentally ready for. “In view of rapidly changing chairs named for Norbert Wiener, John D. MacArthur, and Jim fashions, and uncertainty as to what will be good,” Mattuck urged Simons. They included Guggenheim, MacArthur, Fairchild, and that “the math department continue to experiment, but that they do American Academy of Arts & Sciences fellows and National Acad- it eclectically ... allowing for different options.” emy of Sciences members. Among their long list of honors were the Abel prize, the National Medal of Science, the Eugene Wigner Mattuck’s thoughtful comments brought the event to a close. Though medal, and the American Mathematical Society’s Steele and Bôch- no two-hour celebration could do justice to the enormous contribu- er Prizes. They included an Institute Professor and winners of the tions that these seven have made, “the main point,” as MacVicar and the Killian and sundry other MIT honors. They had wrote to them afterwards, “is to say ‘Thank you,’ and to clap.” served as department heads, chairs of the pure and applied commit- tees, president of the AMS, and members of numerous other com- 7

Herman Chernoff and Lou Howard (Emeriti) Avisha Lalla and Lika Yurkovetsky

David Jerison, Hartley Rogers, John Bush More scenes from the retirement luncheon Danny Kleitman Alar Toomre

Richard Stanley, Joanne Jonsson, Sig Helgason, Carla Kirmani, Ulla and Willem Malkus (Emeritus), David Vogan Phyllis Ruby Block, Linda Okun Ruben Rosales (center)

Farewell Joanne and Linda Dozens of friends, faculty, and fellow admin- and their progress or lack thereof. MIT can Ruby Block, retired. Linda helped graduate istrators gathered twice in May to celebrate be confusing, but Joanne knew everyone in students throughout their time at MIT, from the careers of our beloved administrators, key committee roles and all the tricks for get- coordinating admissions and arranging visits Joanne Jonsson and ting things done. It is difficult by prospective students to graduation and job Linda Okun. to imagine how we will manage searches. Among her numerous contributions Joanne served the without her. She could be tough, to the department and its students over the department for 32 appropriately so, with students— years have been the graduate program bro- years, most of them and faculty—who weren’t doing chure and the “Dinners with Faculty” pro- as Academic Admin- what they ought to be doing. gram for first-year graduate students. “Linda istrator. Hired by Jim Joanne will be re- cares,” said Michael Munkres to run the membered in the de- Sipser in his speech Undergraduate Math partment as a warm, at her farewell party. Office, she quickly became indispensible to caring colleague and “I cannot tell you faculty and students alike. With her dedica- friend to whom one could always how many students tion, inspired leadership, and creativity, she go for helpful, sensible advice or have expressed to developed helpful tools still used today, such a sympathetic ear, over a cup of me their sadness that as the math major checksheets, which clearly coffee. Linda will be leav- and elegantly summarize student progress Graduate Administrator Linda ing the department.” for busy advisors. Always ready to answer a Okun left her position after fourteen years Good luck Joanne and Linda! We’ll miss you. question about department policies and Insti- with the department. Linda ran the gradu- tute rules, Joanne kept track of every student ate office after her predecessor, Phyllis 8

Alumni corner We recently received this story from Sey- involved much contact with Wiener. And came up with a blockbuster: “Can you de- mour Haber of Temple University (retired). he gave me a B, which was a low grade scribe Post’s proof of the unsolvability of the Word Problem for semigroups?” This My doctoral oral examination was truly pe- for a graduate student. (The system was: was a totally unfair question. Nash had come culiar. At MIT, in those days, the hopeful A = Alright, B = Bad, C = Catastrophically nowhere near the theorem in the course he student picked his own exam committee— bad, D = “Please leave the math program.”) taught: it was pretty recent work. But I an- three professors, in three mathematical sub- Wiener was disappointed with my work: he swered it without hesitation, and correctly. jects, each to ask questions about his subject. had thought I was Armand Siegel, a physi- Two days earlier I had wearied of cramming My choices were: cist who was supposed to be doing research with Wiener, and I wasn’t advancing the re- for the exam and had decided to relax—by Norbert Wiener harmonic analysis search. (I was about the same size and shape reading Post’s proof of the unsolvability of John Nash mathematical logic as Siegel, and Wiener’s eyesight was poor. the Word Problem for semigroups! I can’t Warren Ambrose measure theory Eventually Wiener’s secretary figured out explain the coincidence. Such reading was When I got to the exam room, I found two what was going on and told him.) So Wiener not normal relaxation for me. additional professors: George Thomas, who was a strange choice, but I wanted to do re- Nash continued. “I’ll now ask you …” But was the department’s executive officer and search in harmonic analysis, and that was his Levinson stopped him, saying “Let’s first sat in on all doctoral orals, and Norman field. Also, he was the best mathematician have another member of the committee ask Levinson. I had no idea why Levinson was America had ever produced, at that time. some questions. Professor Wiener?” there. Years later, I heard that Ted Martin, Nash was another problem. He was still sane “Uh, speaking of semigroups,” Wiener be- the department head, saw the list of people then, but strange. And he had it in for me. gan, “could you, uh, tell us the connection be- on my committee and exclaimed “There’s (I hadn’t treated him with the respect he tween, uh, semigroups and relativity theory?” no one sane on that committee!” So he sent thought was his due. He was not much older Levinson, who was eminently sane. than me, and was in the same social group of I had never heard of any such thing. I spent a few seconds searching my memory to see It certainly was a strange committee. I had grad students that I was in. He was a much whether I had ever heard of any such thing taken just a single semester course with better mathematician than I was and perhaps and then said, “I don’t know that.” Silence Wiener, a reading course at that. It hadn’t deserved respect, but I thought him arrogant, and respect wasn’t one of my strengths.) He followed. Finally Levinson turned to Wiener informed me that he disagreed with MIT’s and said, “What is the connection between “three subjects” strategy and would ask me semigroups and relativity theory?” Wiener Remembering questions “from the whole range of mathe- got up, went to the blackboard, and lectured matics”! Well, logic was my second-favorite for twenty minutes about an idea he’d had Fagi Levinson branch of math, and Nash had taught my the previous week connecting semigroups logic course. and relativity theory! After that, the exam was a farce. Wiener asked me a few easy I had never taken a course with Ambrose, questions about Fourier series, and Ambrose but he taught measure theory, and I needed a asked some easy questions about measure third subject. I figured I could quickly read theory, and they passed me. I had the sum- up on measure theory in Halmos’s book. mer free. I hadn’t intended to take the oral just then— Haber received his PhD under Norman it was April or May (1953), and I’d planned Levinson in 1954. to cram for it over the summer. But Thomas, who had it in for me even worse than Nash, had pressured me into taking it then. Zipporah “Fagi” Levinson, wife of the So the exam began. Levinson acted as “mas- late Institute Professor Norman Levin- ter of ceremonies” and called on Nash first. son and “den mother” to the mathemat- Nash asked me a few routine questions, then ics department for decades, died on Dec. 11, 2009, at the age of 93. During her husband’s influential tenure and for decades after his death in 1975, Fagi looked after the department’s social m i t d e p a r t m e n t o f mathematics fabric, welcoming new faculty, pre- siding over social gatherings, solving problems, and serving as general con- Department of Mathematics fidante. Family and faculty throughout MIT paid tribute to Fagi at a remem- Massachusetts Institute of Technology brance tea, arranged by the department Building 2, Room 236 Telephone: 617-253-4381 and Fagi’s daughter Joan Zorza, on 77 Massachusetts Ave. Fax: 617-253-4358 March 1. Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Web: math.mit.edu PSB 10.08.0386 Editor Joel Segel Designer ByteGraphics∫ Photographer Bryce Vickmark Printed on recycled paper by Arlington Lithograph