MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Newsletter of the Department of Mathematics at the , Berkeley Fall 2013

Message from the chair Retiring are Alexandre New courses Chorin, long one of the We wrote last year about our new course From Renewal leaders of our group in designed to offer undergraduates intend- to Regrowth Applied Mathematics, who ing to major in life sciences an introduc- will however remain active as tion to the mathematical tools they will Dear Friends, a Professor of the Graduate need to cope with the rapidly changing School, and Robert Bryant, The theme of the chair’s letter research perspectives in biology, psychol- whose directorship of MSRI last year was renewal, marked ogy, and sociology. This course is now ended in June. coming into its own and is generating by new leadership in the de- Chair Arthur Ogus partment as well as new initia- Our accountant Nancy Palmer wide interest across many fields. This tives that we hope will lead to an exciting also retired; although her wisdom and year Math 10A has an enrollment of over period of regrowth of our department. experience will be missed, we are very 250 students. We are very pleased with how these happy with the dynamism of her replace- Starting this spring, our department will initiatives are coming to fruition and are ment, Heather Read. also be one of ten which will participate excited to report on several more that we I am continuing to serve as Department in the new Berkeley Connect mentoring will be rolling out in the next year. Chair, and Martin Olsson remains our program, designed to help students Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs, but De- succeed in their major and to forge ties Growth nis Auroux has temporarily relinquished among undergraduates, graduates, and As demand for education in scientific his role as cochair to resume teaching faculty. Funded by private donors with fields grows, so does demand for instruc- this fall. Michael Christ will be Vice matching funds from campus, this tion in mathematics. We have nearly a Chair for Faculty Affairs and Fraydoun initiative will allow us to combine the thousand more students enrolled in our Rezakhanlou, Vice Chair for Undergrad- best aspects of a large research university courses this year compared to last year, a uate Affairs. like ours with the intimacy provided by a 15% increase. The frontiers of mathemat- small college environment. ical research are also expanding explo- Renovated Facilities sively, in ways that can’t be quantified. Last year we were very happy to have Honors Our department has continued to inno- completed the renovation of the depart- Our faculty continues to maintain its vate in both instruction and research, mental common room in 1015 Evans, position at the cutting edge of research, endeavors which are intimately bound along with an adjacent faculty lounge. as evidenced by its new crop of awards together in departments like ours. We are continuing with ambitious cap- and honors. These are too numerous to To keep pace with the rapidly changing ital improvements this year, including continued on page 2 landscape, our first priority is to renew new photo displays, a new mailroom, a Contents and regrow our faculty. This year we new graduate student lounge, and an have two new ladder faculty arrivals: exciting interactive space on the newly FROM RENEWAL TO REGROWTH 1 Associate Professor Katrin Wehrheim refinished ninth floor outdoor patio. NEW FACULTY 2 These last two projects were financed (symplectic geometry and low-dimen- FAREWELLS AND WELCOMES 3 sional ) and Assistant Professor in part by a very generous donor; we are Vivek Shende (algebraic geometry and extremely grateful both for his financial AWARDS AND HONORS 4 topology). You will find their profiles support and for his contributions to GRADUATE PROGRAM NEWS 5 the very careful design planning, which on page 2. Our recruitment efforts ALSO IN THE NEWS 6 will redouble this year, with up to four also involved students, faculty, staff, and faculty positions to be filled. several outstanding architects. FACILITIES UPDATE 8

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 1 From renewal to regrowth Mathematicians in Seoul in 2014, chosen an “Excellence in Management” award by continued from page 1 to reflect the most exciting developments the staff, a fitting followup to her having list here, except for a few highlights: in research in the last four years. won the Chancellor’s Outstanding Staff award last year. • Ian Agol received the American Math- Based on honors like these, as well as ematical Society Veblen Prize and the research publications and Ph.D. place- Finally, we would like to thank those of London Mathematical Society Senior ments, our department retains its rank you who have supported the Berkeley Berwick Prize for his proof of Thur- as the top public university mathematics Math Department over the past years, ston’s Virtual Fibering Conjecture. department in the world, according to and those who may be thinking of doing the Shanghai rankings and a number of so in the future. Both the State of Cal- • Rob Kirby, the PAM Divisional Library other metrics. ifornia and the federal government are prize for his publishing company’s cutting back their support of higher edu- contribution to open access scientific Thanks cation and research, and it is in no small literature. I am deeply grateful for the help, both part thanks to contributions by alumni • John Lott, the National Academy of Sci- technical and conceptual, that Denis and other friends that we have been ences Award for Scientific Reviewing. Auroux provided during his year as Co- able to compete with our better-funded • Hugh Woodin, the Hausdorff Medal, chair for Strategic Planning, and for the private peers and maintain our standing for his work on set theory. support and guidance of Mark Richards as the top mathematics department in a in his role as Dean of the Division of public institution in the world. • was elected to the Na- Mathematical and Physical Sciences. tional Academy of Sciences. The department staff is as remarkable as Arthur Ogus, Chair Furthermore, we recently learned that the faculty in making our community two of our faculty, Vera Serganova and Professor Ogus (PhD Harvard 1972) has been a function as well as it does, and I want es- member of the department faculty since 1974. His Ian Agol, were selected to be among pecially to thank our Department Manag- the twenty-one Plenary Speakers at the research area is algebraic geometry. Professor er Mary Pepple, who was nominated for Ogus became Department Chair in Fall 2011. upcoming International Congress of

Faculty Profiles NEW FACULTY Vivek Shende Katrin Wehrheim Assistant Professor Associate Professor Katrin Vivek Shende joins our Wehrheim comes to UC Berkeley department from MIT. from MIT, where she joined the His research area is alge- faculty in 2005. Wehrheim is an braic geometry. Shende’s expert in symplectic topology, work relates enumerative gauge theory and geometric geometry and singu- analysis. She is best known for larities of plane curves her work on pseudo-holomor- to knot invariants and geometric representation theory. phic curves and Floer homology. Wehrheim obtained her PhD Shende was an undergraduate student at the University of from ETH Zürich in 2002 as a student of Dietmar Salamon; her Michigan. After a stint in a quantum computing research dissertation was awarded the ETH Medal. She was an Instructor group in the Department of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, he at and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Insti- became a graduate student at Princeton University, where tute for Advanced Study before taking a tenure track position at he obtained his PhD in 2011 under the supervision of Rahul MIT. She received a Sloan Fellowship in 2007, and the Presiden- Pandharipande. After graduating from Princeton he became tial Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2010. In a Simons Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT. 2012 she became a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

2 MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Faculty and staff News Lecturers, Postdocs and Visitors The department is welcoming a lecturer FAREWELLS AND and several postdoctoral fellows this fall: WELCOMES Marius Beceanu (PDEs and Analysis), PhD University of Chicago 2009, Morrey Ladder Faculty Assistant Professor. Even as we welcome two new members Alexander Coward (Topology), D.Phil. of the ladder faculty, Associate Professor Oxford 2008, Lecturer. Katrin Wehrheim and Assistant Profes- Prof. Tim Cramer (Representation Theory), Marius Beceanu sor Vivek Shende (see their profiles on PhD Yale 2013, RTG Postdoctoral Fellow. page 2), we must also bid farewell to Kenji Kozai (Geometry / Topology), PhD some of our esteemed colleagues: Stanford 2013, RTG Postdoctoral Fellow. Professor Alexandre Chorin, who had Andrew Lawrie (PDEs and Analysis), been a leader of our group in applied PhD University of Chicago 2013, NSF mathematics, retired in June 2013. He Postdoctoral Fellow. will however remain active as a Professor Gang Liu (Differential Geometry), PhD of the Graduate School. Professor Robert 2013, Morrey Bryant also retired in June 2013, at the Assistant Professor. end of his term as director of MSRI. These Prof. Robert Bryant Fei Lu (Applied Mathematics), PhD Uni- Alexander Coward colleagues have made many remarkable contributions to math- versity of Kansas 2013, Postdoctoral Fellow. ematics and to the Department, and we wish them well. Takuya Machida (Probability), PhD Yoko- We are very saddened by the death of our former colleague Pro- hama 2010, JSPS Research Fellow. fessor Emeritus Paul L. Chambré, who had joined our faculty in 1951 and held positions jointly in Mathematics and Nuclear Matthias Morzfeld (Applied Mathematics), Engineering until his retirement in 1989. PhD UC Berkeley 2011, Postdoctoral Fellow. Sung-Jin Oh (PDEs and Analysis), PhD Staff Princeton 2013, Miller Research Fellow. Nancy Palmer, who had been the You Qi (Representation Theory), PhD Co- Accountant for our department for ten lumbia 2013, Morrey Assistant Professor. Gang Liu years, retired in December 2012. Adam Topaz (Arithmetic Geometry), PhD U. Penn. 2013, NSF On the other hand, we are very happy to Postdoctoral Fellow. welcome several new staff members: Yan Zhang (Algebraic Combinatorics), PhD MIT 2013, Morrey • Heather Read is our new Accountant. Assistant Professor. Heather is a Berkeley alumna and Nancy Palmer brings to our department 11 years of experience in accounting, finance and payroll in various units on campus; • Yue Liu is our new Human Resources and Payroll Analyst; • Sarah Lirio is the department’s new Contracts and Grants Assistant;

• Igor Savine is the department’s Com- You Qi Yan Zhang Sung-Jin Oh puter Systems Administrator; Heather Read We are also hosting a number of distinguished Visiting Schol- • Brandon Eltiste is our new web developer; ars, including Sigurd Assing, Natasha Blitvić, , • Celene Reyes is our current Administrative Assistant for Martin Davis, Gunnar Fløystad, Allen Knutson, Kevin Lin, the Math Diagnostic Testing Project. Andreas Malmendier, Robert McCann, Pedro Rios, Dana We were also fortunate to have Barbara Hightower with us as Scott, Yuuki Takai, Ignacio Villanueva, John Voight, Michelle Wachs, and Haiyan Zhu. Finally, Yann Brenier is this year’s an interim Student Advisor during the last few months. Chancellor’s Visiting Professor.

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 3 Department News Faculty Promotions AWARDS AND HONORS • Mina Aganagic was promoted from Associate Faculty and Staff Honors Professor to Professor; • Professor Ian Agol received the 2013 • Per-Olof Persson and Oswald Veblen Prize of the American Lauren Williams were Mathematical Society; promoted from Assistant • Professor James Sethian was elected Professor to Associate to the National Academy of Sciences; Professor. Mina Aganagic Per-Olof Persson Lauren Williams • Professor Daniel Tataru was selected • Assistant Professor Lauren Williams • Dario Beraldo was awarded the by the to be a received the Prytanean Faculty Award; Nikki Kose Memorial Teaching Prize. Simons Investigator; • Professor Ken Ribet was the recipient • Peyam Tabrizian was the recipient of • Professor John Lott received a Simons of the department’s 2012-2013 Distin- a Teaching Effectiveness Award. Sabbatical Fellowship, as well as the guished Teaching Award; 2013 National Academy of Sciences • Daniel Appel, Natth Bejraburnin, Award for Scientific Reviewing; • Department Manager Mary Pepple Shuchao Bi, Julia Erhard, Jason won the 2012-13 Excellence in Manage- Ferguson, Daniel Lanoue, Danielle • Professor Hugh Woodin was the inau- ment Award. Maddix, George Melvin, Ralph gural recipient of the Hausdorff Medal Morrison, Markus Vasquez, Andreas of the European Set Theory Society; Graduate Student Honors Voellmer, Linda Westrick, Christo- • Professor Craig Evans was appointed • Semyon Dyatlov was awarded a five- pher Wong, and Kevin Wray were to the Class of 1961 Collegium Chair; year Clay Research Fellowship. His 2012-2013 recipients of Outstanding • Professor Lior Pachter was the recip- dissertation also earned him the Herb Graduate Student Instructor Awards. ient of a Glenn Award for Research in Alexander Prize. • 2013 PhDs Theodore Johnson-Freyd Biological Mechanisms of Aging; • The Bernard Friedman Memorial Prize and Daniel Halpern-Leistner were • Professor James Demmel received in Applied Mathematics was awarded to awarded NSF Postdoctoral Research the 2013 Charles Babbage Award of Robert Saye and Vladislav Voroninski. Fellowships.. the IEEE International Parallel & • The Kenneth Ribet & Lisa Goldberg Undergraduate Honors Distributed Processing Symposium; Award in Algebra was awarded to • Professor and Berkeley- Daniel Halpern-Leistner. • The 2012-2013 Departmental Citation based Mathematical Sciences Pub- was awarded to Class of 2013 Valedic- lishers received the Special Libraries Fellows of the AMS torian Luca Weihs. Association’s PAM Division Award; Thirty-four of our faculty and emeriti • Indraneel Kasmalkar received a Hon- orable Mention for his performance in 2014 ICM Speakers (more than any other institution) are members of the inaugural class of Fellows the 2012 Putnam Competition. Two of the 21 plenary talks at the 2014 of the American Mathematical Society: • Shiyu Li received a Honorable Men- † International Congress of Mathemati- David Aldous, William Bade , George tion in the Schafer Prize competition. cians, to be held in Seoul, Korea, will be Bergman, Elwyn Berlekamp, Richard given by Ian Agol and Vera Serganova. Borcherds, Robert Bryant, Paul Chernoff, • Sichao He, Michael Landry and Luca The program also features Constantin Alexandre Chorin, James Demmel, David Weihs were awarded the Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Prize in Mathe- Teleman and Antonio Montalbán as Eisenbud, Craig Evans, Steve Evans, Da- matics in recognition of their truly sectional invited speakers. vid Goldschmidt, Mark Haiman, Robin Hartshorne, Morris Hirsch, Michael exceptional scholarship. Hutchings, Robion Kirby, T. Y. Lam, • Olof Delight, Joseph Ferrara, Chi- Calvin Moore, David Nadler, Ken Ribet, Sing Ho, Jean-Michel Maldague, Mi- Marc Rieffel, James Sethian, Charles Stone, chael Reinhard, Jia Tian, Kay Walker, Bernd Sturmfels, Daniel Tataru, Dan-Virgil Voiculescu, Paul Vojta, Katrin Wehrheim, Andrew Whalen and Sanghan Yoon Alan Weinstein, Lauren Williams, and were awarded the Percy Lionel Davis Joseph Wolf. They were recently joined Award for Excellence in Scholarship in by new Fellow Edward Frenkel. Mathematics. Ian Agol Vera Serganova

4 MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY Graduate Program News ing cohort was selected from an extraordinarily talented group of applicants, and includes some of the most promising young GRADUATE PROGRAM NEWS mathematicians in the country and worldwide. Last year we awarded 28 PhDs and 7 Masters degrees. Many Prof. Martin Olsson, Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs of these degree recipients went on to academic postdoctoral Our graduate program remains one of the top rated graduate positions in mathematics, including prestigious positions at programs worldwide (in the most recent US News ranking of many of the top institutions around the world. Among them, math graduate programs we tied for second place), and the top Semyon Dyatlov was the recipient of a prestigious five-year Clay graduate program among public universities in the United Research Fellowship; see Semyon’s profile on page 6. We also States. The excellence, energy, and creativity of our graduate saw several of our graduate students take their mathematical students continue to be key drivers of the success of the depart- skills into industry positions. ment in research and teaching. Our graduate students have won numerous awards and fellow- This past year we welcomed 27 new students to our PhD pro- ships; several of them were also honored with departmental gram, seven of whom were international students. The enter- prizes at last year’s commencement ceremony (see page 4).

Congratulations to our students who received their PhDs this past academic year! Daniel Berwick Evans, “Supersymmetric Bradley Froehle, “High-Order Discontin- Set Methods,” under James Sethian. Michaeel Sigma Models, Partition Functions and the uous Galerkin Fluid-Structure Interaction now works at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Chern-Gauss-Bonnet Theorem,” under Peter Methods,” under Per-Olof Persson. Bradley Jakub Kominiarczuk, “Acyclic Monte Carlo,” Teichner. Daniel is now a Szegö Assistant now works for Google. under Alexandre Chorin. Jakub is now a Professor at Stanford University. Subhroshekhar Ghosh, “Rigidity Phenome- Postdoc at the University of Bristol. Scott Cramer, “Inverse Limit Reflection na in Random Point Sets,” under Yuval Peres Kevin Lin, “Two Studies of Topological Quan- and the Structure of L(Vλ+1),” under Hugh and David Aldous. Subhroshekhar is now a tum Field Theory in Two Dimensions,” under Woodin. Scott is now a Triennial Assistant Postdoc at Princeton University. Constantin Teleman. Professor at Rutgers University. Vinicius Gripp, “The Asymptotics of ECH Lilit Martirosyan, “The Representation The- Daniel Cristofaro-Gardiner, “Some Results Capacities and Absolute Gradings on Floer ory of the Exceptional Lie Super-Algebras,” Involving Contact Homology,” under Michael Homologies,” under Michael Hutchings. Vini- under Vera Serganova and Joseph Wolf. Lilit Hutchings. Daniel is now a Member at the cius is a Postdoc at the University of Nantes. is now a Warschawski Assistant Professor at Institute for Advanced Study. Daniel Halpern-Leistner, “Geometric In- UC San Diego. Andrew Critch, “Algebraic Geometry of variant Theory and Derived Categories of Co- Trevor Potter, “Dynamics and Stability of Hidden Markov and Related Models” under herent Sheaves,” under Constantin Teleman. Rolling Viscoelastic Tires,” under Jon Wilken- Bernd Sturmfels. Andrew will be a Postdoc- Daniel is now an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at ing. Trevor now works for Proofpoint. toral Fellow at the Mathematical Biosciences Columbia University. Institute at Ohio State. Robert Saye, “The Voronoi Implicit Interface Michael Hartglass, “Planar Algebras, Free Method with Applications to Multiphase Michael Daub, “Complex and p-adic Compu- Probability, and the Multicolored Guionnet- Fluid Flow and Multiscale Modelling of Foam tations of Chow-Heegner Points,” under Ken Jones-Shlyakhtenko Construction,” under Dynamics,” under James Sethian. Robert is Ribet. Michael is now a Visiting Assistant Vaughan Jones. Michael is now a Visiting now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lawrence Professor at UC Irvine. Assistant Professor at University of Iowa. Berkeley National Lab. John DeIonno, “Quasi-Variational Inequal- Conrad Hengesbach, “Prescribed Mean Cur- Nam Trang, “Generalized Solovay Measures, ities for Source-Expanding Hele-Shaw Prob- vature Systems,” under Robert Bryant. the HOD Analysis, and the Core Model lems,” under Craig Evans. Alexandru Hening, “Two Models of Default Induction,” under John Steel. Nam is now a Jeffrey Donatelli, “Reconstruction Algo- from Finance and a Model of Invasion from Postdoc at Carnegie Mellon University. rithms for X-ray Nanocrystallography via Ecology,” under Steve Evans. Alexandru is Matthew Tucker-Simmons, “Quantum Solution of the Twinning Problem,” under now a Postdoc at the University of Oxford. Algebras Associated to Irreducible Flag Mani- James Sethian. Jeffrey is a Postdoctoral Fel- Gregory Igusa, “Generic Reduction and folds,” under Marc Rieffel. low at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Work with Partial Computations and Partial Vladislav Voroninski, “Phaselift: A Novel Semyon Dyatlov, “Resonances in General Oracles,” under Theodore Slaman. Gregory Framework for Phase Retrieval,” under John Relativity,” under Maciej Zworski. Semyon is is now a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Strain. Vladislav is now a Postdoc at MIT. now a Clay Research Fellow at MSRI and MIT. University of Notre Dame. Hwajong Yoo, “Modularity of Residually Julia Erhard, “The Carlson-Simpson Lemma in Theodore Johnson-Freyd, “Perturbative Reducible Galois Representations and Eisen- Reverse Mathematics”, under Theodore Slaman. Methods in Path Integration,” under Nicolai stein Ideals,” under Ken Ribet. Hwajong is Julia works for Apple as a Research Scientist. Reshetikhin. Theodore is now a Boas Assis- now a Research Associate at the University of Boris Ettinger, under Daniel Tataru. Boris is tant Professor at Northwestern University Luxembourg. now an Associate Research Scholar at Prince- Michaeel Kazi, “Surface Reconstruction from ton University. Volume Fraction Data Using Variational Level

MATHEMATICS + BERKELEY 5 DEPARTMENT NEWS Semyon Dyatlov Awarded Clay Research Fellowship ALSO IN THE NEWS Semyon Dyatlov, who received his PhD last May under the supervision of Maciej Zworski, has been awarded a five-year Clay Research Fellowship. Distinguished Lectures Semyon’s research area is mathematical analysis, and more • The 2012 Serge Lang Undergraduate specifically microlocal analysis, which investigates mani- Lecture was given on November 16th, festations of the classical/quantum (particle/wave) corre- 2012 by John Baez of UC Riverside, spondence in the theory of partial differential equations. on “The Mathematics of Planet Earth.” Semyon’s work applies those methods, and methods from • The 2013 DiPerna Lecture was given the theory of dynamical systems, to problems in scattering by Alan Newell of the University of theory, quantum chaos, and mathematical general relativ- Arizona on January 24th, 2013. The ity. One of his research interests is the study of scattering resonances, which generalize the concept of bound states title of his talk was “Phyllotaxis as a to open systems. Resonances appear in particular when Pattern Forming Front.” studying long-time behavior of linear waves on noncompact Semyon Dyatlov • The 2013 Alfred Tarski Lectures were mainfolds, or decay of classical correlations for chaotic flows. given by Jonathan Pila of Oxford Uni- In his thesis, Semyon develops a new microlocal framework to describe asymptotics versity. The series of three lectures, of resonances and phase space concentration of associated resonant states under nd th th given on April 22 , 24 and 26 , was dynamical assumptions motivated by the wave equations on rotating black holes. on “Rational Points of Definable Sets and In another series of works he investigated the behaviour of generalized plane waves Diophantine Problems.” and of scattering phases, with particularly striking results when the classical dy- • The Spring 2013 Chern Lectures were namics is chaotic. given by Shiing-Shen Chern Visiting During his time at Berkeley, Semyon has written 16 research papers and taught a Professor Nigel Hitchin, of Oxford number of classes. He is spending this Fall at MSRI, and will move to MIT in 2014. University, on April 9th, 11th, 16th and 18th. The titles of the talks were “Qua- Shanghai Rankings Professor Thomas Scanlon serves as the ternionic Manifolds”, “Moduli Spaces”, According to the 2013 Academic Ranking program’s Faculty Director, and Associate “Twistors and Holomorphic Geometry”, of World Universities in Mathematics Professor Antonio Montalbán is its co- and “Correspondences.” recently published by Shanghai Jiao Tong director. Graduate students Gwyneth • The Fall 2013 Chern Lectures were University, the UC Berkeley math de- Harrison-Shermoen and Pablo Solis given by Fields Medalist Stanislav partment again occupies the third place will serve as mentors in Spring 2014. Smirnov, of Geneva University and St. worldwide, just behind Princeton and Petersburg State University, on No- Harvard. Cambridge and Paris 6 round Gifts to the Department vember 4th, 5th and 6th. The talks were out the top five this year. The generosity of the alumni and friends entitled “The Ising Model of a Ferromag- of the Department was once more net from 1920 till 2020”, “CFT and SLE and Berkeley Connect evident this past year. We thank all the 2D Statistical Physics”, and “Self-Avoiding Our department will be one of ten to donors whose gifts, large and small, made Walk on the Hexagonal Lattice.” participate in the launch of the Berke- a key difference in the life of the depart- ley Connect mentoring program next ment. We are especially grateful for three 2013 Commencement semester. Berkeley Connect aims to large gifts received this past year: The Department of Mathematics’ 2013 offer participating undergraduates an • Thanks to the generosity of the Commencement Ceremony took place enhanced community experience and Friends of Berkeley Mathematics and on May 22nd in Zellerbach Auditorium. increased access to faculty and graduate especially a key donor among them, the This year’s commencement speaker student mentors. Participating students department is proceeding with major im- was Professor of Harvard are placed in small discussion groups (at provements to the outdoor patio on the University. The ceremony saw nearly 250 most 20 students) assigned to an expe- ninth floor of Evans Hall, and creating a mathematics and applied mathematics rienced graduate student mentor, with graduate student lounge in the adjacent majors receive undergraduate degrees, bi-weekly meetings on a variety of topics space formerly occupied by the mail while nearly 40 graduate students relevant to math majors, such as how to room; see the article on page 8. received Masters and PhDs; a number write a proof. The program also includes • A generous gift from Mr. Eric Yopes and of departmental prizes (both graduate one-on-one advising meetings, and spe- Ms. Amelia Kaymen has established the and undergraduate) were also awarded cial events featuring mathematics faculty Paul F. Yopes Fund, which will provide during the ceremony. and alumni, including a career panel. continued on page 7

6 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 Regents.” MATHEMATICS +  $5000  $1000  $500  $250  $100  Other $______In addition, (company name) ______will match my gift. BERKELEY The company matching gift form  is enclosed  will be mailed  Please direct my gift to the Department of Mathematics Annual Fund, to be The Department of Mathematics used for the Department’s greatest need at the Chair’s discretion. wishes to thank all alumni, parents,  I prefer to designate my gift for undergraduate scholarships. students, faculty, staff and friends who  I prefer to designate my gift for graduate student fellowships. support the Department.  I prefer to designate my gift for (other) ______ Send me information on charitable estate and gift planning or on establishing You may return this form to: an endowment.

Heather Read, Donor Relations Print Name Signature Date University of California Address Department of Mathematics 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: http://math.berkeley.edu/about/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.

Department News For this we continue to rely crucially on We invite you to join us in keeping UC continued from page 6 donations from alumni and friends of Berkeley Mathematics strong through merit-based support to undergraduate the Department. Here are some of the your gifts to the department. All dona- students in the Math department. The department’s current top priorities: tions, large or small, are greatly valued. fund honors Paul Yopes, who graduated • Graduate Student Fellowships are vi- You may choose whether to direct your from the College of Engineering in 1935, tally needed to enable the department to gift toward a specific goal of your choice and Thomas Yopes, Paul’s grandson and make competitive, attractive offers to the or to have your donation used at the the son of Eric and Amelia, who is cur- very strongest applicants to our graduate department’s discretion. rently an undergraduate student in the program, who are otherwise often lured We also take this opportunity to men- Math Department. by our private peers with offers of higher tion the 2013-14 New Alumni Challenge. • A generous gift from an anonymous stipends and lower teaching loads. Thanks to the generosity of a group of donor has established the Graduate Note: UC Berkeley is currently offering (through donors who are funding this challenge, Student Support Fund in Mathematics, calendar year 2013) a Graduate Student Support a dollar-for-dollar match is available for which will provide fellowships for grad- matching program for major gifts made to endow donations made by our newest group uate students in our department. graduate student support funds. of alumni from the classes of 2009-13 • Endowed Faculty Chairs are needed and this year’s graduating class of 2014. We also extend our heartfelt thanks to Even small donations go a long way: for the many friends of the department who in order to improve the department’s ability to make competitive offers for the example, a $50 donation becomes a $100 contributed to the Kobayashi Memorial gift to the Math department. Don’t miss Fund and to other funds that support recruitment and retention of world-class faculty. this opportunity to double your gift in the department in its various missions. support of Math and to join the ranks of • Research Visitor Funds would make those who are helping us maintain our A Note on Strategic Priorities it easier to invite high-profile visitors excellence and our world-class research The Department of Mathematics is work- to visit Berkeley to deliver lectures in and education programs. our department or collaborate with our ing hard to maintain its excellence in all For further information, please contact Prof. aspects of research and education and to faculty. These intellectual exchanges are of tremendous value to our research and Arthur Ogus, Chair, e-mail: ogus@math. bridge the resource gap that separates us berkeley.edu from our better-funded private peers. education.

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 2013 newsletter

Department News FACILITIES UPDATE The department has been pursuing several capital improvement projects to support its core missions in edu- cation and research. Last year saw a major Works in progress: left, the th9 floor patio; above, the and long overdue ren- new graduate student lounge, both on November 7th. ovation of the depart- ment’s common room, 1015 Evans, as well as the creation of a The new design takes into account improve student quality of life and help faculty lounge area next to it. This year issues such as traffic flow, light, noise, make our graduate program more attrac- we are continuing our efforts to reha- and weather mitigation. New furniture, tive to prospective students. bilitate the department’s most valuable a new color scheme designed to reduce spaces and turn them into functional glare, and other architectural improve- Opening soon... and welcoming interaction areas for the ments such as overhead shades will turn The design and project specifications for mathematics community at large, and for the patio into a welcoming area where the courtyard and graduate lounge were students in particular. faculty, students and staff can interact, elaborated by architects and designers socialize, and work in small groups. Reed Dillingham, William R. Glass and Ninth Floor Courtyard We are also embarking on a more modest Liz Abdulhadi, in concertation with De- The outdoor patio area on the ninth project to improve the ninth floor South partment Manager Mary Pepple, Building floor of Evans Hall, which had fallen into side lobby with new signage and photo Coordinator Kathy Santos, L&S Facilities disrepair and was not being used to its displays. Managers Brian Joseph and Ruben Mejia, full potential, is being renovated and Project Manager Antonio Leony, a de- improved as part of a project that began Graduate Student Lounge partmental task force, and the generous this past summer and will be completed A study lounge with natural light had donor who funded the project. We thank by year’s end. long been one of our graduate students’ them all for their time and efforts. Funds from Campus Capital Projects top requests, and was identified last year Work is progressing well, and the new allowed us to demolish the old concrete as a departmental priority. The project Friends of Math Interactive Courtyard patio, repair and reseal the faulty roof came to life this past summer thanks to Area and Graduate Student Lounge will membrane under it, and install a paver the same donor who funded the improve- be open by the end of 2013. system that is both visually more appeal- ments to the courtyard. ing and easier to maintain. The new graduate student study lounge Newsletter Contributors This served as the starting point for a will be located in the space adjacent to Editor: Denis Auroux. Thanks to Arthur thorough redesign of the courtyard area, the patio that was previously occupied by the departmental mail room. (The Ogus, Mary Pepple, Barb Waller, Lauren made possible by a generous donation by Williams, and Maciej Zworski. the Friends of Berkeley Mathematics. mail slots were moved to the copy room 958 Evans.) This lounge will greatly Photography: mostly George Bergman.

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