MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Newsletter of the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley Fall 2015

Message from the chair Many thanks to Maciej Thanks Zworski for acting as I thank those of you who have supported Greetings to the Friends the departmental liaison the Berkeley Math Department in the of the UC Berkeley Math to these festivities. Ian past, and encourage those who may be Department: won a lot of money, but considering donating to us in the future. I have been serving as Interim the really key question Since both the State of California and Chair of the Mathematics is whether he also gets a the federal government continue cutting Department since July 1 of parking space: fevered ne- back their support of higher education, it last summer and have been Interim Chair Craig Evans gotiations continue at the is thanks to contributions from alum- immersed in lots of great de- highest campus levels. ni and friends that we have been able partmental happenings over this past to compete with private peers that are Curriculum summer and fall. I am continually grate- better-funded. We aspire to maintain ful during my caretaker regime to Mike This fall has seen as well the continued our standing as the top mathematics Christ, Fraydoun Rezakhanlou and Jon roll-out of the new “mathematics for department in a public institution in the Wilkening for serving as the respective the life sciences” courses Math 10AB, world, and we will. currently serving about 700 students vice chairs of faculty, undergraduate and The new chair, Martin Olsson, begins his and growing. This class, initiated by Lior graduate affairs, and to Tom Scanlon for term next summer. serving as Equity Advisor. These jobs Pachter, is an extremely ambitious intro- have become increasingly important over duction to calculus, combinatorics and Best wishes, the years, as navigating the UC adminis- probability/statistics methods for future Craig Evans, Interim Chair trative environment becomes more and biology majors. I am very proud that the more complex. Math Department, although experienc- Craig Evans (PhD UCLA 1975) has been a mem- ing budget cuts, has nonetheless been ber of the UCB mathematics faculty since 1989. able to create this exciting new class. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, A few weeks ago we were all thrilled And while the department has received holds the Class of 1961 Chair in Undergraduate when Ian Agol won a Breakthrough Prize varied media coverage this year, I also Education, and wrote the influential graduate textbook “Partial Differential Equations.” Evans in Mathematics, awarded at a gala cere- want to make it clear that our priority became Interim Chair on July 1, 2015 and will end mony in Silicon Valley that was followed is to continue to provide high quality his term on June 30, 2016. by the Breakthrough Prize Symposium teaching of mathematics at all levels. held the next day on the Berkeley campus.

Contents CHAIR’S MESSAGE 1 BREAKTHROUGH PRIZE 2 DEPARTMENT NEWS 3 GRADUATE PROGRAM NEWS 4 Vice Chairs Mike Christ, Fraydoun Rezakhanlou, and Jon Wilkening Martin Olsson NEW FACULTY 6 FAREWELLS AND WELCOMES 7 ALSO IN THE NEWS 8

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 1 IAN AGOL WINS 2016 BREAKTHROUGH PRIZE

The 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics was recently awarded to our colleague Ian Agol, for “spec- tacular contributions to low dimensional and geo- metric group theory, including work on the solutions of the tameness, virtual Haken and virtual fibering conjectures.” Endowed with a $3 million award, the Breakthrough Prizes are among the world’s highest profile awards in fundamen- tal sciences. The prizes were presented on November 8th, 2015 at a star-studded gala hosted by Seth MacFarlane; the Ian Agol speaking at the Breakthrough Symposium. (Photo: UC Berkeley / ETS) award presenters included Russell Crowe and Hilary Swank. alently, if it can be obtained by taking the product of a surface Ian Agol’s field, topology, is the branch of mathematics that with an interval and gluing the surfaces at each end of the studies the “shape” of spaces, treating as identical spaces that interval together. Not every hyperbolic 3-manifold is Haken or can be continuously deformed into each other, as opposed to ge- fibered. However, the virtual Haken and fibering conjectures, ometry which studies concepts such as distance and curvature proved by Agol, state that every hyperbolic 3-manifold admits that are not preserved by such deformations. Agol’s work is the a finite cover (i.e., another manifold which wraps itself nicely culmination of a research program begun by around the given one) which has the requisite property. Agol’s (who obtained his PhD in our department in 1972 and was results complete the core part of Thurston’s program for 3-mani- a faculty member at Berkeley from 1991 to 1996). Thurston’s folds, and have been rightfully acclaimed as the most important seminal 1982 paper formulated key conjectures about the inter- development in the field in the past decade. action between geometry and topology in 3 dimensions – specifically, how 3-dimensional manifolds are built from ele- Ian Agol obtained his PhD in 1998 from UC San Diego under mentary pieces, and how these elementary pieces themselves . He was a faculty member at the University behave. A major milestone in Thurston’s program was reached of Illinois at Chicago from 2001 until 2007, when he became in 2003, when Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman (who Associate Professor in our department; he was promoted to Pro- was a Miller Fellow at Berkeley in the 1990s) proved the geome- fessor in 2012. Agol’s work has earned many accolades, includ- trization conjecture, for which he was awarded (and declined) ing the 2012 Senior Berwick Prize and the 2013 Oswald Veblen a Fields Medal and a Millennium Prize. The geometrization Prize in Geometry; he was a plenary speaker at the 2014 ICM. conjecture states that all 3-manifolds can be cut along spheres and tori into pieces which are quotients of one of eight model Breakthrough Prize Symposia geometries by discrete group actions. The richest geometry is th that of hyperbolic 3-manifolds (quotients of hyperbolic 3-space), On November 9 , UC Berkeley hosted Breakthrough Prize i.e., those which carry a metric of constant negative curvature. Symposia on life sciences, fundamental physics, and math- ematics, featuring the winners of the 2016 Breakthrough Agol’s work proves two key conjectures of Thurston regarding Prizes and other leading scientists. Besides Breakthrough the structure of hyperbolic 3-manifolds: the virtual Haken and Prize laureate Ian Agol, the Mathematics Symposium fea- virtual fibering conjectures. A 3-manifold is said to be Haken if tured talks by our colleagues Lauren Williams, David Nadler it contains a properly embedded incompressible surface; this and George Lakoff, as well as Sourav Chatterjee of Stanford, allows the manifold to be understood by iteratively cutting it while our own Maciej Zworski represented mathematicians along surfaces. Even better, a 3-manifold is said to be fibered if in a cross-disciplinary panel discussion. it can be expressed as a surface bundle over the circle, or equiv-

2 MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY DEPARTMENT NEWS MATH 10 REACHES A MILESTONE Distinguished Lectures 1400 We are proud to report that the • The 2014-15 Serge Lang Undergrad- 1200 uate Lecture was given on October enrollment in Math 10 (Methods of 1000 16th, 2014 by Tony DeRose of Pixar Mathematics: Calculus, Statistics, 800 Animation Studios, on “Math in the and Combinatorics) has more than 600 Movies.” For 2015-16, Brian Conrad of doubled year over year, to exceed 700 400 Stanford University speaks on Decem- this Fall. Math 10 is a year-long 200 nd sequence offering a fresh perspective ber 2 , 2015 on “The ABC Conjecture.” 0 1A on twenty-first century mathematics F 2011 16A • The 2015 DiPerna Lecture was given F 2012 F 2013 10A by Vladimir Sverak of the University to students who intend to major in F 2014 F 2015 nd the life sciences. Unlike “Calculus of Minnesota on January 22 , 2015, on Math 10A, 16A and 1A Fall semester enrollments, 2011-2015 “PDE Aspects of 2D Incompressible Flows.” for Biology” classes at other institu- tions, Math 10 does not merely add • The 2015 Alfred Tarski Lectures were examples from biology to an existing given by Julia Knight of the University course. Instead, it combines in a of Notre Dame. The series of three unique manner elements of calculus, lectures, given on March 30th and April statistics and discrete mathematics, 1st and 3rd, was on “Computability and Complexity of Mathematical Structures.” to cover a wide range of ideas from the mathematical sciences that are • The 2014-15 Chern Lectures were given relevant for modern biology and med- by Fields Medalist and Shiing-Shen icine. The course has gone a long way Chern Visiting Professor Ngô Báo since it was launched by Professor Châu, of the University of Chicago, Lior Pachter in 2011-12 as a pilot with on November 12–14th, 2014. The talks 50 students. It is now required by were entitled “Endoscopy,” “The Funda- all biology majors, and with a total mental Lemma,” and “Cohomology of the Hitchin fibration and more general fibrations.” enrollment in excess of 700 in the lec- tures taught this Fall by Profs. Craig • The Fall 2015 Bowen Lectures were Evans and Richard Bamler, Math 10 given by , of Harvard Uni- nd rd th nearly matches the scale of our calcu- versity, on November 2 , 3 and 4 . lus sequences Math 1 and 16. The talks were entitled “Cohomology Prof. Craig Evans teaches Math 10A. (Photo: Keegan Houser) Theories, Rings, and Fields”, “Representa- tion Theory in Intermediate Characteris- • Assistant Professors Richard Bamler, • Professor Bernd Sturmfels received tic”, and “Roots of Unity in Intermediate Lin Lin and Vivek Shende received a honorary doctorate from the Uni- Characteristic.” 2015 Sloan Research Fellowships. versity of Frankfurt, while Professor Dan-Virgil Voiculescu received one Faculty Honors • Professor Olga Holtz became a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. from the University of Waterloo. • Professor Ian Agol received the 2016 • Professor Denis Auroux was awarded Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. • Professor John Steel received the Hausdorff Medal of the European Set the 2014 Noyce Prize for excellence in • Professors Martin Olsson and Nicolai Theory Society. undergraduate teaching. Reshetikhin received 2015 Simons • Associate Professor Lauren Williams • Professor Joseph Wolf was elected Fellowships, while Professor Ian Agol to Argentina’s Academia Nacional de became a Simons Investigator. won the 2016 AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory. Ciencias. • Professors Richard Borcherds and • Professor Arthur Ogus was honored Craig Evans were elected to the • Professor James Demmel received the 2014 Paris Kanellakis Theory and with a conference at IHES on the occa- National Academy of Sciences. th Practice Award of the ACM. sion of his 70 birthday. • Professors Edward Frenkel and Daniel • Morrey Visiting Assistant Professor Tataru were elected to the American • Professor Alan Schoenfeld received Yan Zhang received the department’s Academy of Arts and Sciences. the 2014 Mary P. Dolciani Award. 2014-15 Distinguished Undergraduate • Professors Emeriti Alexander Chorin • Professor Maciej Zworski received a Teaching award. and the late David Blackwell were 2014 Distinguished Faculty Mentor 2014 recipients of the National Medal Award. of Science.

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 3 GRADUATE PROGRAM NEWS tions in mathematics, including prestigious positions at many of the top institutions around the world. We also saw several Prof. Jon Wilkening, Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs of our graduate students take their mathematical skills into Our graduate program remains one of the top rated graduate industry positions. programs worldwide (in the most recent US News ranking of Our graduate students have won numerous awards and fellow- math graduate programs we tied for third place), and the top ships; several of them were also honored with departmental graduate program among public universities in the United prizes at last year’s commencement ceremony. States. The excellence, energy, and creativity of our graduate students continue to be key drivers of the success of the depart- ment in research and teaching. STUDENT AWARDS This past year we welcomed 33 new students to our PhD pro- Graduate Student Honors gram, nine of whom were international students. The entering cohort was selected from an extraordinarily talented group of • Shamil Shakirov received the 2014-15 Herb Alexander Prize, applicants, and includes some of the most promising young awarded for an outstanding dissertation in pure mathematics. mathematicians in the country and worldwide. • The 2014-15 Bernard Friedman Memorial Prize in Applied Last year we awarded 33 PhDs and 4 Masters degrees. Many of Mathematics was awarded to Benjamin Preskill. these degree recipients went on to academic postdoctoral posi- • Piotr Achinger and Ralph Morrison received the Kenneth Ribet & Lisa Goldberg Award in Graduate Student Profiles Algebra. Ralph Morrison • Benjamin Harrop-Griffiths was awarded the Ralph Morrison received his PhD last May under the 2014-15 Nikki Kose Memorial Teaching Prize. supervision of Bernd Sturmfels. His research area is tropical geometry, a relatively new branch of algebraic • Thunwa Teerakarn received a 2014 Teaching geometry. Whereas the objects of classical algebraic Effectiveness Award. geometry are defined by polynomial equations, their • Brian Cruz, Kevin Donoghue, Benjamin tropical counterparts are combinatorial objects such as Harrop-Griffiths, Donggyu Lim, Dominique graphs and polyhedral complexes. Ralph Morrison Maldague, Saad Qadeer, Kyle Russ-Navarro, Ralph’s work focuses on tropical curves, and specifically, how Moor Xu, Alexander Youcis and Qiaochu to lift information from the tropical world back to usual algebraic geometry. Yuan were 2014-2015 recipients of Outstand- In total, Ralph has published six papers, and submitted one more. He has ing Graduate Student Instructor Awards. earned an Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award for teaching, and his dissertation won the 2015 Kenneth Ribet & Lisa Goldberg Award in • Recent PhDs Ellen Chih, Jeffrey Galkowski Algebra. In 2014-15 Ralph received a fellowship from the Friends of Berkeley and Harold Williams were awarded NSF Post- Mathematics Graduate Student Support Fund, which is supported by char- doctoral Research Fellowships.. itable gifts to the department. This funding enabled him to attend the 2015 AMS Summer Institute in Algebraic Geometry at the University of Utah, the Undergraduate Honors largest research conference in the field, held only once every 10 years. • The 2014-2015 Departmental Citation was Ralph is spending 2015-16 as a postdoctoral researcher at the KTH Royal In- awarded to Class of 2015 Valedictorian stitute of Technology in Stockholm; in Fall 2016 he will start a tenure-track Indraneel Kasmalkar. Assistant Professorship at Williams College. • Donghao Wang received an award for dis- Eugenia Rosu tinguished performance in the 2014 Putnam Eugenia Rosu is a fifth year graduate student working Competition. under the supervision of Xinyi Yuan. She grew up in • Robert Chatham, Alexandra Fahey, Yuval Iasi,, Romania and obtained her undergraduate degree Gannot, Weiqiao Han, Indraneel Kasmalkar, from Jacobs University Bremen. Seunghwan Lim, Kiho Park and Theodore Eugenia’s research area is algebraic number theory. Zhu were awarded the Dorothea Klumpke Her specific goal is to find out for which integers N Roberts Prize in Mathematics in recognition of Eugenia Rosu there exist non-zero integer solutions to the equation their truly exceptional scholarship. x3 + y3 = Nz3. While the question can be stated in elementary terms, solving it requires sophisticated tools such as L-functions of elliptic curves. • Boyi Chen, Jason Hu, Yangfan Lu, Alex Thanks to generous contributions from our donors, Eugenia was supported Mennen, Benjamin Siskind and Yilin Wei in 2013-14 by the Lehmer Fellowship in Number Theory, which allowed her were awarded the Percy Lionel Davis Award for to focus on research and dedicate time exclusively to her PhD thesis. Excellence in Scholarship in Mathematics.

4 MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Congratulations to our students who received their PhDs this past academic year! Piotr Achinger, “K(π,1) Spaces in Algebraic Katrina Honigs, “Derived Equivalent Variet- Ralph Morrison, “Tropical and non-Archime- Geometry,” under Arthur Ogus. Piotr is now ies and Their Zeta Functions,” under Martin dean Curves,” under Bernd Sturmfels. Ralph a European Postdoctoral Institute Fellow at Olsson. Katrina is a Postdoctoral Research is now a Postdoc at KTH Stockholm. the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Assistant Professor at University of Utah. Michael Pejic, “Quantum Bayesian Networks Academic of Sciences. Long Jin, “Scattering Resonances for Convex with Applications to Games Displaying Par- Khalilah Beal, “Viscosity Solution Methods Obstacles,” under Maciej Zworski. Long is rondo’s Paradox,” under Alberto Grünbaum. in Risk Analysis,” under Craig Evans. now a Postdoc at Harvard University. Eric Peterson, “Cotangent Spectra and the Natth Bejraburnin, “A Study on Correlations Xin Jin, “Symplectic Approaches in Geo- Determinantal Sphere,” under Constantin Te- between Gene Functions and Gene Evolu- metric Representation Theory,” under David leman. Eric is now a Benjamin Peirce Fellow tions,” under Lior Pachter. Natth now works Nadler. Xin is now a Boas Assistant Professor at Harvard University. at Facebook. at Northwestern University. Benjamin Preskill, “The Jump Splice Method Emily Berger, “Probabilistic Methods for Adam Kalman, “Newton Polytopes of Clus- for Elliptic Interface Problems and the Incom- Single Individual Haplotype Reconstruction,” ter Variables,” under Lauren Williams. Adam pressible Navier-Stokes Equations,” under under Lior Pachter. is now a Data Scientist / NLP Engineer at James Sethian. Benjamin now works for PDT Ellen Chih, “Indivisible Characteristics Kanjoya Inc. Partners. of Recursively Enumerable Sets,” under Andre Kornell, “Operator Algebras in Zvi Rosen, “Algebraic Matroids in Applica- Theodore Slaman and Leo Harrington. Ellen Solovay’s Model,” under Marc Rieffel. Andre tions,” under Bernd Sturmfels. Zvi is now a is now an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the is now a Krener Assistant Professor at UC Postdoc at Penn State University. University of Wisconsin Madison. Davis. Mohammad Safdari, “Variational Inequali- Jeffrey Galkowski, “Distribution of Reso- Kim Laine, “Security of Genus 3 Curves in ties with Gradient Constraints,” under Nico- nances in Scattering by Thin Barriers,” under Cryptography,” under Ken Ribet. Kim is now lai Reshetikhin and Craig Evans. Mohammad Maciej Zworski. Jeffrey is now an NSF Post- a Postdoc at Microsoft Research. now works at the Institute for Research in doctoral Fellow at Stanford University. Daniel Lanoue, “The Metric Coalescent,” un- Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iran. Boaz Haberman, “Inverse Problems with der David Aldous. Daniel is now a Researcher Shamil Shakirov, “Applications of Macdon- Rough Data,” under Daniel Tataru. Boaz is a at Typical Set LLC. ald Ensembles,” under Nicolai Reshetikhin. Dickson Instructor at University of Chicago. Heather Lee, “Homological Mirror Symme- Shamil is now a Harvard Junior Fellow at Kelley Harris, “Inference of Population try for Open Riemann Surfaces from Pair-of- Harvard University. History and Mutation Biology from Human Pants Decompositions,” under Denis Auroux. Zachary Sylvan, “On Partially Wrapped Genetic Variation,” under Steve Evans and Heather is now a Golomb Visiting Assistant Fukaya Categories,” under Denis Auroux. Rasmus Nielsen. Kelley is now a Postdoctoral Professor at Purdue University. Zachary is now a Postdoc at ETH Zurich. Research Fellow in Genetics at Stanford. Christopher Melgaard, “Randomized Arthur Tilley, “N Angry Men,” under Thomas Benjamin Harrop-Griffiths, “Quasilinear Pivoting Strategies and Spectrum-Revealing Scanlon. Arthur now works at the Center for Dynamics of KdV-Type Equations,” under Bounds in Numerical Linear Algebra,” under New Music and Audio Technologies. Daniel Tataru. Benjamin is now a Simons Ming Gu. Christopher now works at Morgan Lawrence Valby, “Some Case Studies in Junior Fellow at the Courant Institute of Stanley. Algebra Motivated by Abstract Problems of Mathematical Sciences, NYU. Adam Merberg, “Noncommutative Gen- Language,” under Thomas Scanlon. Lawrence Christian Hilaire, “The Ricci Flow on Rie- eralized Brownian Motions with Multiple is now a Visiting Assistant Professor at Indi- mannian Groupoids,” under John Lott. Processes,” under Dan-Virgil Voiculescu. ana University. Luming Wang, “Discontinuous Galerkin 2015 Commencement Methods on Moving Domains with Large De- formations,” under Per-Olof Persson. Luming The Department of Mathematics’ 2015 Com- is a Quantitative Researcher at Citadel LLC. mencement Ceremony took place on May 22nd in Zellerbach Auditorium. This year’s Eric Wayman, “A Skew-Product Decompo- sition of Diffusions on a Manifold Equipped commencement speaker was Professor Jordan with a Group Action, A Lorentz Model with Ellenberg of University of Wisconsin. The Variable Density in a Conservative Force ceremony saw just over 300 mathematics Field, and Reconstruction of a Manifold from and applied mathematics majors receive the Intrinsic Metric of an Associated Markov undergraduate degrees, while 35 graduate Chain,” under Steve Evans. Eric now works at students received Masters and PhDs; a num- Startup.ML. ber of departmental prizes (both graduate Te Zhang, “Weak Convergence and Rapidly and undergraduate) were also awarded Jordan Ellenberg (Photo: MAA) Oscillating Pendula,” under Craig Evans. during the ceremony.

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 5 Faculty Profiles Alan Hammond Associate Professor Alan NEW FACULTY Hammond, who was appointed in 2014 jointly to our department and Richard Bamler the Department of Statistics, comes Assistant Professor Richard to Berkeley from the University Bamler comes to our depart- of Oxford. Hammond’s research ment from Stanford University. uses probability theory to obtain Bamler’s research lies at the in- rigorous mathematical results in terface of differential geometry statistical mechanics. Hammond and geometric analysis. His obtained his PhD at UC Berkeley in work investigates the behavior of Ricci flow on Riemannian 2005 as a student of Yuval Peres and Fraydoun Rezakhanlou. He manifolds. Bamler obtained his PhD from Princeton Univer- then occupied postdoctoral positions at the University of British sity in 2011 as a student of Gang Tian, then became a Simons Columbia and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford before joining our faculty in at NYU. In 2009 he joined the Department of Statistics at the 2014. He was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2015. University of Oxford, where he was a University Lecturer and was awarded an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship.

Lin Lin Sug Woo Shin Assistant Professor Lin Lin Associate Professor Sug Woo Shin was appointed to our depart- came to Berkeley in 2014 from MIT, ment in 2014. Lin’s work is in where he had been a faculty mem- applied and computational ber since 2011. Shin is an expert in mathematics, with a particular number theory. His work concerns focus on problems in computa- Shimura varieties, automorphic tional chemistry and materials forms, and the Langlands corre- science such as electronic spondence. Shin obtained his PhD structure theory for quantum in 2007 from Harvard University, systems. Lin obtained his PhD where he was a student of Richard from Princeton University in 2011 under the supervision of Taylor. He then became a member of the Institute for Advanced Weinan E and Roberto Car, then became a Luis Alvarez Post- Study and a Dickson Instructor at University of Chicago, before doctoral Fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laborato- taking a tenure-track position at MIT. In 2013 he received a Sloan ry. In 2015 he was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship. Research Fellowship.

Nikhil Srivastava Assistant Professor Nikhil Srivastava comes to Berkeley from Microsoft Research. Srivastava’s work studies structural and algorithmic questions in linear algebra and graph theory. With collaborators, he has obtained strik- ing results on graph sparsification and solved the Kadison-Singer problem in operator algebras. Srivastava obtained his PhD from Yale University in 2010 under the supervision of Daniel Spielman. After spending time at IAS, Princeton and MSRI, in 2012 he became a Researcher in the Algorithms group at Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India. In 2014 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul.

6 MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Faculty and staff News Postdocs and Visitors The department is welcoming a number FAREWELLS AND of new postdoctoral fellows this fall: WELCOMES Alexis Bouthier (Representation Theory and Langlands Program), PhD Université Ladder Faculty Paris-Sud 2014, Morrey Visiting Assistant Even as last year we welcomed five new Professor. members of the ladder faculty, Associate Ved Datar (Differential Geometry), PhD Professors Alan Hammond and Sug Prof. Robert Coleman Prof. Ishiro Satake Rutgers University 2014, RTG Visiting Woo Shin and Assistant Professors (1954-2014) (1927-2014) Assistant Professor. and Richard Bamler, Lin Lin Nikhil David Dynerman (Geometry of Datasets and Mathematical Srivastava (see their profiles on page 6), we must also bid Biology), PhD University of Wisconsin Madison 2015, Morrey farewell to some of our esteemed colleagues: Visiting Assistant Professor. Professors Alberto Grünbaum and Leo Harrington retired in Max Fathi (Optimal Transport, Analysis and PDEs), PhD June 2014, and Professor Hugh Woodin retired in January 2015. Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6) 2014, FRG Visiting These colleagues have made many remarkable contributions to Assistant Professor. mathematics and to the Department, and we wish them well. Martin Helmer (Computational Algebraic Geometry), PhD We are very saddened by the deaths of two of our colleagues. University of Western Ontario 2015, NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow. Professor Robert Coleman, who had joined our faculty in Tyler Helmuth (Probability Theory, Statistical Mechanics), PhD 1983, passed away in March 2014, just a few months after his University of British Columbia 2015, NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow. retirement. He is remembered for his groundbreaking work in Peter Hintz (Linear and Nonlinear PDEs), PhD Stanford Uni- number theory and p-adic geometry. Professor Ichiro Satake, versity 2015, Miller Research Fellow. who joined our faculty in 1968 and retired in 1983, passed away in October 2014. He is best known for his work on algebraic Takayuki Kihara (Mathematical Logic), PhD Tohoku University groups and automorphic forms. 2011, JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow. Brent Nelson (Mathematical Analysis and Operator Algebras), Staff PhD UCLA 2015, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow. There were six departures among our department staff in the Khoa Nguyen (Symplectic Geometry), PhD Stanford Universi- last year. Rebecca Pauling, our Director of Student Services, ty 2015, RTG Visiting Assistant Professor. accepted a position with Industrial Engineering Operations Silvain Rideau (Model Theory), PhD Université Paris-Sud 2014, Research and left in October 2014. Mark Jenkinson, her succes- Morrey Visiting Assistant Professor. sor, accepted a position in Biosciences and left on September 1, 2015. Celene Reyes left the Math Diagnostic Testing Project in Khrystyna Serhiyenko (Cluster Algebras), PhD University of January 2015. Deb Haaxman, our Academic Human Resources Connecticut 2015, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow. Analyst, retired June 2015, after 33 years of UC service. Veasina We are also hosting a number of distinguished Visiting Scholars Thang’s and Brandon Eltiste’s positions ended on July 31, 2015. including Samuel Bengmark, Harry Crane, Martin Davis, C. Ward Henson, Wei Li, Ibrahim Ly, Reza Pakzad, Nikolai On the other hand, we are very happy to report that Jennifer Saveliev, Alexandru Scorpan, Dana Scott, Zeng-Qi Wang, Pinney agreed to serve as Interim Director of Student Services. Keita Yokoyama, Shaowen Yu, Yonghua Zhao, and Fuhai Zhu. In addition, Dexter Stewart from Astronomy agreed to help Pierre Raphaël is this year’s Chancellor’s Visiting Professor. with Math’s undergraduate advising for the fall semester; Risa Wolfson was hired as a temporary un- dergraduate advisor for the fall semester; Monica Warde was hired as an Academic Human Resources Analyst to replace Deb Haaxman; Kristin Mendoza-Fabiani was hired as a Research Administrator for our department; and Jacqueline Frias was hired as the Program Assistant for the Math Diagnostic Testing Project. Monica Warde Alexis Bouthier Peter Hintz Khrystyna Serhiyenko

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 7 University of California, Berkeley Nonprofit Org. Department of Mathematics U.S. Postage 970 Evans Hall #3840 PAID Berkeley, CA 94720-3840 University of California MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Fall 2015 newsletter

Graduate student Shenghan Zhang Prof. Evans’ Math 10 lecture (photo: Keegan Houser) Graduate students discuss mathematics in 1015 Evans

ALSO IN THE NEWS A Note on Strategic Priorities department or collaborate with our Rankings The Department of Mathematics is faculty. These intellectual exchanges are working hard to maintain its excellence of tremendous value to our research and The UC Berkeley math department education. occupies the fourth place worldwide in all aspects of research and education in the 2015 Academic Ranking of World and to bridge the resource gap that sep- Besides these specific goals, we welcome Universities in Mathematics published arates us from our better-funded peers. gifts to the department’s discretionary by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. For this we continue to rely crucially on fund, which give the Chair of the Depart- donations from alumni and friends of ment much-needed flexibility in funding Meanwhile, Berkeley ranks second in the the Department. Here are some of the graduate student recruitment, parts of 2016 list of “Best Global Universities for department’s current top priorities: the faculty recruitment process, research Mathematics” just published by U.S. News. • Graduate Student Fellowships are travel for graduate students, and many other initiatives that make our program Research Initiatives vitally needed to enable the department to make competitive, attractive offers competitive and rewarding. The Department of Energy recently to the very strongest applicants to our We invite you to join us in keeping UC announced support for the Center for graduate program, who are otherwise of- Berkeley Mathematics strong through Advanced Mathematics for Energy Re- ten lured by our private peers with offers your gifts to the department. All dona- search Applications (CAMERA), directed of higher stipends and lower teaching tions, large or small, are greatly valued by Professor James Sethian. loads. You may choose whether to direct your The launched the • Endowed Faculty Chairs are needed gift toward a specific goal of your choice Simons Collaboration in Homological in order to improve the department’s or to have your donation used for our Mirror Symmetry, in which Prof. Denis ability to make competitive offers for the most pressing needs at the department’s Auroux is a Principal Investigator. recruitment and retention of world-class discretion. faculty. For further information, please contact Nicholas Facilities Update • Research Visitor Funds make it Cole, e-mail: [email protected], Maria Our priority this past year has been easier to invite high-profile visitors to Hjelm, e-mail: [email protected], or Prof. to renovate the department’s spaces. visit Berkeley to deliver lectures in our Craig Evans, e-mail: [email protected] During the summer of 2014, seventy-five graduate offices were upgraded including tures, ceiling tiles, paint, mirrors, shelves paint, new furniture and chalkboards. Newsletter Contributors and signage. During the summer of 2015, During the spring of 2015, the Evans 9th Editor: Denis Auroux. twenty-three faculty offices were reno- floor men’s and women’s restrooms were Thanks to Craig Evans, Mary Pepple, Barb vated, including new flooring, furniture, renovated. This included new plumbing, Waller, and Gina Spindler. paint, window blinds and glass boards. flooring and wall tiles, toilets, sinks, fix- Photography: mostly George Bergman.

8 MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Department of Mathematics, Your Gift Is Welcome! University of California at  Enclosed is my gift of $______Berkeley Please make your tax deductible gift for the Department of Mathematics payable to “UC Berkeley MATHEMATICS + Foundation.”  $5000  $1000  $500  $250  $100  Other $______BERKELEY In addition, (company name) ______will match my gift. The company matching gift form  is enclosed  will be mailed The Department of Mathematics  Please direct my gift to the Department of Mathematics Annual Fund, to be wishes to thank all alumni, parents, used for the Department’s greatest need at the Chair’s discretion. students, faculty, staff and friends who  I prefer to designate my gift for undergraduate scholarships. support the Department.  I prefer to designate my gift for graduate student fellowships.  I prefer to designate my gift for (other) ______You may return this form to:  Send me information on charitable estate and gift planning or on establishing an endowment. Heather Read, Donor Relations University of California Print Name Signature Date Department of Mathematics Address 979 Evans Hall, #3840 E-mail* Berkeley, CA 94720-3840 Please provide your e-mail address so we can send you future issues of this newsletter. You can also donate to the Department of Mathematics online at: https://math.berkeley.edu/donate The information you provide will be used for University business and will not be released unless required by law. A portion of all gifts is used to defray the costs of administering the funds. All gifts are tax-deductible, as prescribed by law. Thank You For Your Gifts!

Photos by: Keegan Houser, Piotr Achinger, Helen Hu

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 9