Autumn 2011 Volume 6 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

Gigliola Staffilani as Graduate Committee Inside Chairs; and Ju-Lee Kim and John Bush, co- Chairs of the Undergraduate Advisors, with • New faculty 2 Stephen Johnson, who replaces Bush this • Faculty news and awards 3 year. Ruben Rosales is Chair of the depart- ment’s newly-formed Diversity Committee, • Renovation update 4 tasked with finding and implementing ways • Fundraising 5 to reach a broader pool of potential math- • Student activities 6–7 ematical talent. • Associate Head’s report 7 Renovation plans • Outreach programs 8 This past spring began the first formal steps Dear Friends, toward a long-awaited renovation of the As the summer winds down and we get department’s home in Building 2. ready for the fall term, writing We inaugurated PRIMES, an aca- this letter gives me a chance to demic-year program to give selected reflect on the past year and to an- local high school students an op- ticipate the year ahead. portunity to do supervised research. First, and most importantly, our Professor Pavel Etingof and Lec- recent recruiting efforts paid off turer Slava Gerovitch created and splendidly with the addition of ran this new program, which was four outstanding new members to heavily over-subscribed, building our faculty: Professor Igor Rod- on the success of the summer pro- nianski (analysis and PDEs), and grams RSI (for high school students, Assistant Professors Sug Woo selected internationally) and SPUR Shin (Langlands program), Jared (for MIT undergraduates). For our Speck (analysis and PDEs) and majors planning to enter the work Gonçalo Tabuada (non-commuta- force after graduation, we presented tive algebraic geometry). a Career Panel last fall, hosting past majors to give talks about their Haynes Miller has been appoint- professions. These covered quite ed Associate Head of Mathemat- a diversity of fields and careers in ics, a position which may have actuarial science, algorithmic trad- existed in the department long ing, animation, energy markets, and ago, but which had been unfilled consulting and venture capital. Our since the 1970s at least. The Simons Lecture series continues this Associate Head will oversee the spring, featuring László Lovász and department’s educational activi- Alexander Lubotzky. ties. Haynes has served as Chair of the Undergraduate/Education Maintaining the momentum of our Committee for seven years, and fundraising success, our friends this new position raises the visi- have given generously once again. bility of that role, both internally Notable gifts from MathWorks, the and externally, recognizing the Robert Collins Trust, and others increasing complexity of man- have put us well over the $6 million aging our teaching effort. mark, making this a banner year. We are most grateful to everyone who While on the topic of departmental has supported us. governance, I take this opportunity to thank MIT planners commissioned a study of our our colleagues for their committee service existing space to explore possibilities. With With that, I’ll sign off for now. last year, and those on board for the coming our enviable location on Memorial Drive Have a good year! year: David Jerison, who chaired our Pure and views of the Charles River, the result Math Committee over the last two years, could be glorious. Images from the study, and Tom Mrowka, our new PMC Chair some shown here and inside, offer tantalizing for 2011–12; Michel Goemans as Applied ideas for community and office spaces. Michael Sipser Math Chair; , Peter Shor, and Department Head 2 New faculty

Igor Rodnianski, Professor of Mathematics, comes to MIT from Princeton University, where he was on the faculty since 2000. Rodnianski is a world-renowned analyst, specializing in nonlinear hyperbolic PDEs, particularly Einstein’s equations for space-time in general relativity. He has been developing a more precise understanding of singularities, their formation, and their connection with the geometry of space-time. Among various ac- complishments, he has made great strides toward one of the main goals of the subject—to understand the conditions under which rotating black holes arise. Rodnianski was a Long-Term Prize Fellow of the Clay Mathematics Institute, and recently received the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Kansas State University. He received his PhD from Kansas State in 1999 as a student of Lev Kapitanski, following a master’s degree from St. Petersburg University.

Gonçalo Tabuada, Assistant Professor of Mathemat- ics, comes to MIT from the New University of Lisbon, Portugal. Tabuada’s research program covers a broad and deep area of algebraic geometry, linking modern homo- topical algebra to non-commutative derived algebraic ge- ometry and K-theory. In 2008, he received the Estímulo à Investigação Award of Portugal’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He completed his PhD at the University of Paris 7 in 2007 under Bernhard Keller and had visiting appointments at the Paul Sabatier University, UCLA, University of Bonn, University of Göttingen, and MIT.

Jared Speck, Assistant Sug Woo Shin arrives Professor of Mathematics, at MIT as Assistant Pro- comes to MIT from Princ- fessor of Mathematics fol- eton University. Speck lowing a year at the Insti- is a leading analyst of the tute for Advanced Study. nonlinear PDEs of math- Shin has done exceptional ematical physics, linked work in the global Lang- to problems in relativistic lands program, which fluid mechanics, nonlinear bridges number theory electrodynamics and gen- and representation theory. eral relativity. He received He received his PhD at his PhD from Rutgers Harvard University under University in 2008 under Richard Taylor in 2007, Michael Kiessling and and he was a Dickson In- Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh. structor at the University He served as lecturer at of Chicago. Shin was a Princeton for a year before going to the University of Cam- mentor of advanced high school students for the International bridge on a research appointment. He returned to Princeton last Mathematical Olympiad while an undergraduate in Korea. year as an NSF Fellow working with Igor Rodnianski and Ser- giu Klainerman. (Shown in photo with wife Jessica Watkins.) 3

...... New Faculty Professorships......

Gilbert Strang was appointed as the first holder of the department’s new MathWorks Profes- sorship, beginning July 1, 2011. The MathWorks Profes- sorship was recently endowed through the generosity of MathWorks. (See related article on page 5.) Gil is a leading nu- Mark Behrens has been appointed the Cecil and Ida B. Green Career merical analyst, au- Development Associate Professor of Mathematics. One of the top thor, and educator. algebraic topologists of his generation, Mark works in homotopy “Strang has been theory, a branch of topology that aims to elucidate global proper- a great inspiration ties of topological spaces through the study of continuous maps on and a good friend,” says Alan Edelman. “He has a knack for asking spaces. Specifically, Mark investigates maps between spheres of dif- those key critical questions that illuminate whole bodies of work. fering dimensions—the building blocks for more general spaces. He He has been an important figure in the analysis of finite elements, uses vast computational resources and algebraic methods to classify wavelets, and all aspects of linear algebra and matrix computations. these mappings, thereby revealing the structure of the associated ho- His clear, concrete, and practical books and videos have been read motopy groups. His program has yielded deep connections between and watched by millions of students worldwide. It is particularly homotopy theory, number theory, and algebraic geometry. He was appropriate that Strang be appointed the MathWorks Professor, recognized this past year with an NSF CAREER award. given that he has introduced generations of students to the wonder of matrices.” Mark is a natural teacher, highly successful at all levels: giving sum- mer talks to high school teachers, mentoring our SPUR students, Gil has received numerous prestigious awards during his long career running the department’s microteaching workshop, designing under- at MIT, including the in 1977, the John von Neu- graduate class tutorials, and giving graduate seminars. As Haynes mann Medal and the Lester R. Ford Prize in 2005, and the Su Buchin Miller says, “he has an astute awareness of the particular feature of Prize in 2007. He came to MIT as a CLE Moore Instructor in 1959, his audience.’’ Passionate about increasing diversity in mathematics joining the faculty in 1962, and was recognized with MIT’s Gradu- and science, Mark serves as the department’s representative on the ate Student Council Teaching Award in 1986 and 2003. He served School of Science Underrepresented Minority Strategic group and as President of SIAM during 1999 and 2000. Gil is a Fellow of the serves as a mentor in MIT’s summer MSRP program. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a SIAM Fellow, and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences...... Faculty Recognitions...... Scott Sheffield received the Line and Michel the AMS Joseph Doob Prize (with Peter be a SIAM Fellow “for his contributions Loeve International Prize in Probability, Kronheimer) for their book Monopoles and in bringing together mathematics and awarded by U.C. Berkeley every two years Three Manifolds (Cambridge University industry in the areas of numerical linear “to recognize outstanding contributions by Press, 2007). Bjorn Poonen received algebra, random matrix theory, and parallel researchers in probability who are under the MAA Chauvenet Prize for his article computing.” Laurent Demanet received a 45 years old.” James McKernan was “Undecidability in number theory,” Notices Sloan Research Fellowship. elected Fellow of the Royal Society, “for his of the AMS, 55 (2008). Bjorn also received Steven Johnson received tenure. work in algebraic geometry, especially for a Guggenheim Fellowship. Peter Shor was his contributions to proving the existence elected Fellow of the American Academy of Mark Behrens and Ben Brubaker were of minimal models of complex algebraic Arts and Sciences. David Vogan received promoted to Associate Professor. varieties in all dimensions.” Jonathan the AMS Levi L. Conant Prize for his article

Kelner received the Harold E. Edgerton “The character table for E8” in Notices Faculty Achievement Award, given to of the AMS, 54 (2007). Bonnie Berger Staff Awards a junior member of the MIT faculty for was selected to give the Margaret Pittman Galina Lastovkina and Dennis Porche exceptional distinction in teaching, research, Lecture, sponsored by the National Institutes received the School of Science Infinite and scholarship. Tom Mrowka received of Health. Alan Edelman was selected to Mile Award. 4 The Building 2 Renovation Project Building 2, home of the Mathematics Department, has been iden­ Poland [now Lviv in the Ukraine], during the 1930s and 1940s. To fa- tified as a candidate for major near-term renovation under MIT 2030, cilitate collaboration, the planning study presents a vision that creates a comprehensive process to envision the MIT of the future. This long- spaces that encourage people to leave their offices, talk to one another, anticipated renovation would enliven our departmental quarters in and work together, with blackboards and coffee strategically placed to multiple ways. It would provide attractive conference, seminar, and stimulate conversation.” casual community spaces to enable small-group interaction. Offices “The proposed Common Room illustration, for example, gives us a sense of how the cur- rent common room and department library could be transformed into a beautiful space, with windows on three sides overlooking the river and Killian court. Another sketch generated during the planning study describes a vision for a new departmental Conference Room on the second floor that will overlook Lowell Court. This new space would be a stunning addition to the department and an ideal location for hosting seminars and other department presentations.” Other ideas include transforming spaces near the stairway on the southeast corner of the building into common gathering areas, in- cluding a graduate student lounge and small seminar room. Moving these types of spaces to this strategic location would enhance their attraction and promote connection between Conference Room the first, second, and third floors. Faculty viewed these and other sketches at a would be laid out thoughtfully for the way mathematicians work to- lunch meeting in April. The meeting ended with a spontaneous round day. There would be suites of graduate student offices and/or instruc- of applause, an encouraging response to the conceptual stage of our tor offices opening onto shared meeting areas so that discussions and renovation project. We are now moving into the next stage: reaching office hours wouldn’t interfere with quiet concentration. The overall out to our donor community to raise funds for construction. Once a design would provide a unity to our space, with entrances and stylistic funding plan has been approved by the MIT Corporation, we’ll begin elements identifying our department. Finally, the renovation would the process of developing architectural and engineering design restore the antiquated infrastructure of the building. Built in the early 1900s, the other “Main Group” buildings have similar infrastructure problems. A successful renovation of our departmental home would confirm the possibilities such restoration holds for these other areas. About a year ago, we received approval to undertake a planning/feasibility study for the renovation. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the existing condition of the building, document current space needs, assess the capac- ity of the building to accommodate future growth/change, and explore potential design concepts that would improve the function and aesthetics of the space. We interviewed several firms and hired Imai Keller Moore Architects to complete the study. The mathematics department faculty was enthusiastic about IKM’s approach to the project and their experience on other projects at MIT. Mathematics Department Head Mike Sipser noted that “the Planning Study was a unique and exciting opportu- nity for faculty in our department to work collaboratively and create a vision for the future. The consulting team Common Room was invaluable in helping to facilitate the conversations among all the constituent groups in the department: faculty, graduate documents, ultimately leading to construction of a new home for the students, instructors, and staff. They guided a process that provided us department. with many ideas and possibilities for the renovation of Building 2.” “We want a department home that is exciting and stimulating both to Mike describes one idea that emerged from these meetings: “Math- us, who work and study here, and to the people we want to attract as ematicians share a tradition of meeting in pairs or small groups, students and colleagues,” Mike summarizes. “A great department de- gravitating to inviting spaces like the famous Scottish Café in Lwów, serves great space.” 5

The New MathWorks Chair Today, MathWorks employs 2,300 people, has over a million users worldwide, and its prod- ucts have been adopted by more than 5,000 universities and colleges. Jack and Cleve serve as the company’s President and Chief Mathematician, respectively. The company has a strong social mission, and its leadership believes in the importance of mathematics as the cornerstone of all sciences. It also be- lieves in the strength of MIT’s Mathematics Department. Jack, the son of Institute Professor John Little (’48 PH, PhD ’55) at the Sloan School, re- ceived an SB from MIT EECS in 1978. Six years ago, Jack joined the Mathematics De- partment Visiting Committee and has been a Michael Sipser, Cleve Moler, , Jack Little, Marc Kastner member ever since. MIT’s initial purchase of MATLAB, along with Jack’s undergraduate On February 7, 1985, the MIT Mathematics University of Michigan, Stanford, and the Uni­ work at the Institute, sparked an ongoing re- Department purchased ten copies of a soft- versity of New Mexico. He wrote MATLAB lationship between MathWorks and MIT that ware program called MATLAB, short for to enable students to use the LINPACK and has prospered for more than 25 years. Matrix Laboratory. It thus became the first EISPACK math librar- We are all delight- customer of a young Boston-area startup ies without writing ed that Gil Strang called MathWorks, founded a year earlier FORTRAN programs. has been selected by Jack Little (’78 EECS) and Cleve Moler. MATLAB soon came to hold the first These days, the company’s products— to the attention of Jack, MathWorks Chair MATLAB and Simulink—are used by engi- who recognized it as (see page 3 for neers and scientists around the world. A few a powerful software more on Gil), and months ago, we were delighted to learn that solution that could we’re most grate- Jack and Cleve planned to create the MathWorks enable engineering, ful to Jack, Cleve, endowed Professorship through a major gift to scientific, and techni- and MathWorks the MIT Mathematics Department. cal applications on the for making this personal computer. Cleve was a professor of mathematics and extraordinary gift computer science for almost 20 years at the possible. A gift arrives ... 20 years later Robert Collins passed away in 1991, leav- with a discretionary ing part of his estate to the Department of account to support Mathematics at MIT. This generous gift was his or her research made even more remarkable in ways that bear for a five-year telling now. period. Currently Collins, in the words of his good friend Peter David Vogan holds this honor. Holmstrom, was a “whiz kid who became a For more information very successful investor.” He was not a math- Mike Sipser visited ematician: he never attended any college or Peter Holmstrom a on making a gift to the university and had no formal connection to couple of years ago Mathematics Department, MIT. But he had a lifelong interest in math- at his home north please contact ematics and a deep respect for MIT. of San Francisco. “As far as I know,” Director of Development The gift was made at the time when David Robert Collins Benney was department head, but it did not Mike says, “none Erin McGrath of our faculty ever knew Robert Collins. So come to MIT immediately. Collins stipulated at [email protected], that Peter Holmstrom would manage a trust I wanted to meet his friend Peter, who was Common Room holding the funds, releasing only a portion of managing these important resources for us, and 617-452-2807. the income to the Mathematics Department. give Peter a chance to learn a bit about our de- This proved to be a fortuitous move: Holm- partment and how these funds are helping us.” strom’s investments have since multiplied the This past fall, Peter decided to turn the funds fund’s value several times over. In the mean- over to MIT. The total value of the fund ex- while, the Mathematics Department used the ceeds $3,000,000. We are deeply grateful to income to establish a rotating “Collins Schol- Robert Collins and to Peter Holmstrom for this arship,” which provides one faculty member wonderful gift. 6

Putnam Triumphs Continuing our successes of recent years, Ofir Nachum, David Rol- MIT undergraduates dominated the 2010 nick, David Rush, Kris- William Lowell Putnam Mathematical hanu Sankar, Jonathan Competition, with the most participants Schneider, Minseon Shin, receiving high recognition (23/84). Anthony Wang, Yinghui Wang, Chiu Wai Wong, Putnam Fellows: 2/5 George Xing. Among Yu Deng, Colin Sandon these, Yinghui Wang was Next nineteen: 5/19 awarded the Elizabeth Sergei Bernstein, Vlad Firoiu, Whan Lowell Putnam Prize, for Ghang, Jacob Steinhardt, Alexandr outstanding performance Zamorzaev by a woman participant. Honorable Mentions: 16/60 The MIT Team placed second in the competition. The students on our team, John Berman, Yu Cheng, Paul Christiano, sophomores Sergei Bernstein and Whan Ghang and junior Jacob Steinhardt, Brian Hamrick, Travis Hance, Daniel Li, were mentored by Professors Richard Stanley and Abhinav Kumar.

Ricardo Joel Abrantes Andrade, “From Manifolds David Andrew Jordan, “Quantized Multiplicative Berger. Michael is now a postdoc at the Broad to Invariants of En-Algebras,” under Haynes Miller. Quiver Varieties,” under Pavel Etingof. David is now a Institute. Ricardo is now an Assistant Professor at Stanford. postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin. Jin Woo Shin, “Efficient Distributed Medium Access Junkyu An, “Combinatorial Enumeration of Weighted Catherine Ann Lennon, “Arithmetic and Analytic Algorithm,” under Devavrat Shah (EECS). Jin Woo is Catalan Numbers,” under Alexander Postnikov. Junkyu Properties of Finite Field Hypergeometric Functions,” now a postdoc at the Georgia Institute of Technology. is now a Senior Analyst at KIS Pricing, Inc. under Ben Brubaker. Cathy is now a software Steven W. Sivek, “Bordered Legendrian Knots and Jennifer Shyamala Sayaka Balakrishnan, developer at RJMetrics. Sutured Legendrian Invariants,” under Tom Mrowka. “Coleman Integration for Hyperelliptic Curves: Steven is now a postdoc at Harvard. Algorithms and Applications,” under Kiran Kedlaya. Kaloyan Stefanov Slavov, “The Moduli Space Jen is now a postdoc at Harvard. 2011 Doctorates of Hypersurfaces Whose Singular Locus has High Hoda Bidkhori, “Classification and Enumeration of Dimension,” under Bjorn Poonen. Kaloyan is now a Special Classes of Posets and Polytopes,” under Richard Wenxuan Lu, “Instanton Correction, Wall Crossing postdoc in Bulgaria. Stanley. Hoda is now a postdoc at North Carolina State. and Mirror Symmetry of Hitchin’s Moduli Spaces,” Vedran Sohinger, “Bounds on the Growth of High Tova Helen Fell Brown, “Bordered Heegaard Floer under Shing-Tung Yau (Harvard). Wenxuan is now a Sobolev Norms of Solutions to Nonlinear Schrödinger Homology and Four-Manifolds with Corners,” under Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. Equations,” under Gigliola Staffilani. Vedran is now a Denis Auroux. Tova is now a postdoc at UCLA. Xiaoguang Ma, “On Trigonometric and Elliptic postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania. Peter M. Buchak, “Flow-Induced Oscillation of Cherednik Algebras,” under Pavel Etingof. Xiaoguang Jose A. Soto, “Contributions on Secretary Problems, Flexible Bodies,” under John Bush. Peter is now a is now a postdoc at the University of Alberta. Independent Sets of Rectangles and Related Problems,” postdoc at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Michael Lim Manapat, “Critical Phenomena in under Michel Goemans. Jose is now an Assistant Linan Chen, “Applications of Probability to Partial Evolutionary Dynamics,” under Martin Nowak (Harvard Professor at the University of Chile, Santiago. Differential Equations and Infinite Dimensional Medical School). Michael is now a Lecturer in Applied Emanuel I. Stoica, “Unitary Representations of Analysis,” under Daniel Stroock. Linan is now a postdoc Mathematics at Harvard. Rational Cherednik Algebras and Hecke Algebras,” at McGill. Bernard Allen Mares, “Some Analytic Aspects of under Pavel Etingof. Emanuel is now a postdoc at the Leonid Chindelevitch, “Extracting Information Vafa-Witten Twisted N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills University of Geneva. from Biological Networks,” under Bonnie Berger. Theory,” under Tom Mrowka. Ben is now a postdoc at Sawyer James Tabony, “Deformations of Leonid is now an Applied Mathematician at Pfizer Inc. McMaster. Characters, Metaplectic Whittaker Functions, and the Dorian Croitoru, “Mixed Volumes of Hypersimplices, Ronen Eliahu Mukamel, “Orbifold Points on Yang-Baxter Equation,” under Ben Brubaker. Sawyer Root Systems and Shifted Young Tableaux,” under Teichmueller Curves and Jacobians with Complex is now a Visiting Professor at Boston College. Alexander Postnikov. Dorian is now a Portfolio Multiplication,” under Curtis McMullen (Harvard). Mayank Harshad Varia, “Studies in Program Obfus­ Manager at WorldQuant, LLC. Ronen is now an Assistant Professor at Stanford. cation,” under Ran Canetti (CSAIL). Mayank is now a Craig Jeffrey Desjardins, “Monomization of Power Timothy Nguyen, “The Seiberg-Witten Equations technical staff member at Lincoln Laboratory, MIT. Ideals and Parking Functions,” under Alexander on Manifolds with Boundary,” under Katrin Wehrheim Lu Wang, “Self-Shrinkers of Mean Curvature Flow Postnikov. Craig is now a Trader/Technologist at Virtu and Tom Mrowka. Tim is now a Research Assistant and Harmonic Map Heat Flow with Rough Boundary Financial LLC. Professor at the Simons Center at SUNY–Stony Brook. Data,” under Toby Colding. Lu is now a postdoc at Christopher Stephen Dodd, “Equivariant Coherent James Thomas Pascaleff, “Floer Cohomology Johns Hopkins. Sheaves, Soergel Bimodules, and Categorification of in the Mirror of the Projective Plane and a Binodal Yee Lok Wong, “High-Performance Computing with Affine Hecke Algebras,” under Roman Bezrukavnikov. Cubic Curve,” under Denis Auroux. James is now an PetaBricks and Julia,” under Alan Edelman. Yee Lok is Chris is now a postdoc at the University of Toronto. Instructor at the University of Texas at Austin. now at Goldman Sachs. Benjamin London Harris, “Fourier Transforms Nikita Rozenblyum, “Connections on Conformal HwanChul Yoo, “Combinatorics in Schubert of Nilpotent Orbits, Limit Formulas for Reductive Blocks,” under Jacob Lurie (Harvard). Nick is now a Varieties and Specht Modules,” under Alexander Lie Groups, and Wave Front Cycles of Tempered Simons postdoc at Northwestern. Postnikov. HwanChul is now a postdoc at the Korea Representations,” under David Vogan. Ben is now a Michael Benjamin Schnall-Levin, “RNA: Institute for Advanced Study. postdoc at Louisiana State University. Algorithms, Evolution and Design,” under Bonnie 7

Letter from Haynes Miller Associate Head of the Mathematics Department

Dear Friends, Here’s a challenge we encountered in our recent efforts to further OEIT grant to pay for the services improve the Mathematics Department’s educational program. We of a programmer, and by the fall of offer thirteen different “Communications Intensive” subjects in the 2009 we had an operational Word- department. Some are fairly standard lecture subjects, but most Press web tool, The Mathematics are Undergraduate Seminars, with no fixed syllabus and different CI Space. This site now houses an leaders each year. Then there is the unique Project Laboratory in extensive archive of material about Mathematics. Despite their diversity, however, faculty teaching teaching mathematical communi- Mathematics CI subjects confront many of the same problems, cation, discussing topics that include how to teach good writing, from teaching the skills of good presentation and good writing in using peer critique to help students improve their presentations, mathematics to evaluating student performance. The challenge is and handling students with varying backgrounds and ability. to create a virtual community of CI subject leaders and to capture Last year we won an NSF grant to merge the extensive archive of resulting good practice. material about teaching mathematical communication we have Enter Susan Ruff, a Lecturer in the Program in Writing and Human- assembled with the Mathematical Association of America’s Math- istic Studies with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Swarth- ematical Digital Library http://mathdl.maa.org. With this initiative, more College. Susan has worked with Mathematics Department MIT moves into a leadership role in the national discussion about faculty members on our Communication Intensive subjects almost teaching the communication of mathematics. since the start of the Communication Requirement. Together with In a separate development, we have expanded the Math CI Space former Instructors Sami Assaf and Mia Minnes, Susan came up into a general platform for all sorts of collaboration among educa- with a brilliant solution to the CI challenge. The three sketched tors: the Educational Collaboration Space, freely available at http:// a design for a website that would encourage discussion among ecs.mit.edu. This work has been the focus of articles published by subject leaders, preserve good practice, and archive teaching ma- the MIT News Office and Inside Higher Ed. terial. Violeta Ivanova of the MIT Office of Educational Innovation and Technology built a prototype and helped us secure a small — Haynes Miller

Student awards Graduate students Linan Chen and Joel received the Association of MIT Alumnae Lewis received the Charles and Holly Hous- (AMITA) Senior Academic Award. Raghu man Award for excellence in undergraduate Mahajan ’11, a double major with Physics, teaching. Steven Sivek and Vedran So- received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to hinger each received the Charles W. and study at the University of Cambridge. Paul Jennifer C. Johnson Prize for an outstanding Christiano ’12 received the Anna Pogosy- paper accepted for publication. ants Award for his UROP project in CSAIL under the supervision of Jonathan Kelner. Undergraduate Alexandr Zamorzaev ’11 Shaunak Kishore ’12 received a Barry M. received the Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Math- Goldwater Scholarship, given to students Bjorn Poonen presenting to Vedran Sohinger ematics for distinguished scholastic achieve- who exhibit outstanding potential and who ment, professional promise, and enthusiasm intend to pursue careers in mathematics, the for mathematics. Yinghui Wang ’11 and natural sciences, or engineering disciplines. Fan Wei ’12 each received Honorable Men- Former undergraduate Maria Monks ’10 tion in the Alice T. Schafer Prize for excel- was awarded the 2011 Frank and Brennie lence in mathematics by an undergraduate Morgan Prize, given jointly by the three woman in mathematics, given by the Asso- Math Societies, for outstanding research in ciation for Women in Mathematics. Yinghui mathematics while an undergraduate. Yufei also received the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Zhao ’10 received Honorable Mention for Prize, for outstanding performance by a this prize. Linan Chen and Joel Lewis woman in the Putnam Competition. Melissa Gymrek ’11, a double major with EECS, 8

MIT PRIMES MIT Hosts National Priming Talented Teens Mathematics Contest In October 2010 the Depart- for Girls ment of Mathematics launched a new high school research pro- At the invitation of the Mathematics gram called PRIMES (Program Department, MIT hosted the third annual for Research in Mathematics, Advantage Testing Foundation Math Prize Engineering, and Science). for Girls in September, 2011. The contest PRIMES selects exceptional is the only national mathematics contest for students from Greater Boston middle school and high school girls. It was to work on research projects founded by Arun Alagappan, president of formulated by faculty and men- the Advantage Testing Foundation, which tored by graduate students. sponsors the contest, and by Advantage Meeting during the academic Left to right: Christina Chen, Dong-Gil Shin, Caroline Ellison, year, PRIMES complements the Saarik Kalia, Xiaoyu He, Carl Lian, Ziv Scully, Aaron Klein, Testing co-director Ravi Boppana (’86 RSI summer program, allowing Mike Zhang, David Ding, Surya Bhupatiraju, Bill Kuszmaul, PhD EECS), to promote gender equality at students more time to pursue their Jason Li, Sheela Devadas, Pavel Etingof the highest levels of achievement in math projects. The goal of the program, PRIMES and science. The ceremony was held in Chief Research Advisor Professor Pavel Et- Kresge Auditorium, where Alagappan, to learn what real research is like by ingof explains, is to “let mathematically tal- Boppana, Professor Tom Leighton, and actually doing real research.” ented high school stu­dents discover how it MIT President Susan Hockfield welcomed feels to be a research mathematician.” “The program is unparalleled! There is the 277 participants and their families no comparable opportunity for highly Research topics range from combinatorics, and guests. Sophomore Victoria Xia of motivated teens to immerse themselves number theory, and convex geometry to graph Vienna, Virginia, took home the $25,000 in the world of higher mathematics.” theory/dynamical systems, arithmetic of finite first-place prize. fields, commutative algebra and algebraic “It also gives some talented young geometry over finite fields, and representation students a great chance to know MIT so theory. Graduate students serve as mentors they can feel and breathe the true MIT and thereby have an opportunity to acquire culture.” teaching experience and to learn new fields. Several PRIMES students are entering MIT as “I wanted to learn some representation theo- undergraduates in the fall and will continue ry,” says mentor Steven Sam, “and the best way their research under the UROP program. is to teach someone.” PRIMES is directed by Dr. Slava Gerovitch; On May 21, 2011, PRIMES held its first annual Dr. Tanya Khovanova is the head mentor. conference at MIT, where 21 students pre- The program is funded through 2012 by sented their projects. The widely attended generous support from the Mathematics event showed the tremendous success of Department, the Department of Electrical the program. Several projects will likely lead Engineering and Computer Science, the to publications in professional journals and Clay Mathematics Institute, the NSF, the will be strong contenders at national science NIH, and MathWorks. The program is look- competitions for high school students. Com- ing for support in subsequent years. For Victoria Xia ments by students’ parents demonstrated their more information about the program, the enthusiasm: abstracts of conference talks, and the slides “The program provides a truly transforma- of student presentations, see: tive experience for bright kids—they got http://web.mit.edu/primes Upcoming Event RSI & SPUR — Fundraising Update A dinner honoring Sig Helgason’s wonderful career and 85th birthday We’ve raised $1,475,000 of our $2.5M dol- the students participating in the programs will take place Saturday, January 7, lar goal to endow the RSI and SPUR sum- and math faculty. We’re grateful to Chi-Fu 2012 at the MIT Faculty Club. mer research programs for high school and Huang and Marina Chen, who are leading MIT undergraduates, now in their 18th and this fundraising effort, and to all donors for 14th year respectively. The new donors who their generous support. have joined this campaign with a major gift are Jake Xia (’92 EE) and Jen Lu (’90 EE, m i t d e p a r t m e n t o f mathematics ’91 EECS), Tom Chang (’76 EE) and Jea- nette Eng, and Laurie and Andy Okun.

th Last July 18 many of our donors heard an Department of Mathematics overview of the programs from Professor and RSI & SPUR Director David Jerison, Massachusetts Institute of Technology together with presentations on RSI and Building 2, Room 236 SPUR projects by students and their gradu- Telephone: 617-253-4381 77 Massachusetts Ave. Fax: 617-253-4358 ate student mentors. The donors met with Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Web: math.mit.edu PSB 09.08.0423 Editor Joel Segel Designer∫ ByteGraphics Photographer Bryce Vickmark Printed on recycled paper by Arlington Lithograph