NEWS Mathematics People Award for Mentorship of Undergrad- 2019 AWM Awards uate Women in Mathematics “for her exceptional track record of support, The Association for Women in Mathematics presented guidance, unvarnished feedback, several awards at the Joint Mathematics Meetings held in and inspiration.” The prize citation Baltimore, Maryland, in January 2019. notes that “Weekes is a founding JACQUELINE DEWAR of Loyola Mary- director and has offered a strong mount University in Los Angeles has shaping hand in the deeply impact- been named the recipient of the 2019 ful MSRI-UP [Mathematical Sciences Louise Hay Award for Contributions Suzanne Weekes Research Institute Undergraduate to Mathematics Education “in rec- Program] program, devoted to ‘cul- ognition of her many achievements tivating heretofore untapped mathematical talent’ with as a professor, a leader in outreach, a focus on communities traditionally underrepresented and a contributor to the scholarship in mathematics. Over her tenure at MSRI-UP, over eighty of teaching and learning.” She has women, including more than fifty women of color, have Jacqueline Dewar been an advocate for active learning, passed through the program, with the majority continuing initiated a biomathematics program, to graduate programs after college.” She received her PhD and developed courses in computer literacy, the history of in mathematics and scientific computing from the Univer- women in mathematics, and mathematics in civic engage- sity of Michigan in 1995. Her research involves dynamic ment. She was a cofounder of the Math Science Interchange materials, numerical methods, and computational fluid in Los Angeles, which still provides an annual career day, dynamics. She chairs the Education Committee of the “Expanding Your Horizons—LA”, for K–12 students and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). teachers. Thousands of girls and their teachers have at- KATHRYN Mann of Brown Uni- tended these events. She continues to lead workshops and versity has been awarded the 2019 train other leaders. Dewar tells the Notices: “My interest in Joan and Joseph Birman Research mathematics goes back to my wonderful freshman algebra Prize in Topology and Geometry teacher, Mr. Kramer, followed by being selected as one of “for breakthrough work in the the- forty students (thirty-six boys and four girls) to attend a ory of dynamics of group actions on four-week NSF summer program for talented high school manifolds.” The prize citation reads: students at St. Louis University. That hooked me on math- “Mann uses a broad array of mathe- ematics! As a university faculty member for forty years, matical tools to obtain results at the some of the most eye-opening experiences I have had in Kathryn Mann juncture of topology, group theory, mathematics education occurred inside K–12 schools doing geometry, and dynamics, and she things like talking about math careers, coaching junior high finds new connections between them. She has discovered students for math competitions, leading a ‘math for girls’ new phenomena, built general theory, and has solved after-school program, and visiting the classrooms of my long-open problems. As an example, in a solo paper she former students who became K–12 teachers, and conversing introduced a new method to study the topology of the with them, professional to professional. I heard from the space of surface group representations in the space of teachers about their successes and the challenges they faced. orientation-preserving circle homeomorphisms and to My wish is that many more of us in the higher education prove a rigidity result about geometric such representa- mathematics community could find ways to have K–12 tions. Building on this paper, jointly with M. Wolff, Mann mathematics education experiences.” Outside of her pro- proved that conversely this rigidity property characterizes fessional work, Dewar loves gardening and swing dancing. the geometric surface group actions on the circle. A leading SUZANNE WEEKES of Worcester Polytechnic Institute has expert describes this as one of the best results obtained in been honored with the 2019 M. Gweneth Humphreys 762 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 66, NUMBER 5 Mathematics People NEWS the area in the last couple of decades and another math- ematician describes Mann as ‘that once-in-a-generation 2019 MAA Awards thinker who opens significant new directions for research.’” The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) awarded Mann received her PhD from the University of Chicago in several prizes at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Balti- 2014, working under Benson Farb. She has received a Sloan more, Maryland, in January 2019. Research Fellowship for 2019. Mann tells the Notices: “I've TOM LEINSTER of the University of always enjoyed the outdoors, and like to spend as much Edinburgh was awarded the Chau- of my non-mathematical time outside as I can, hiking, venet Prize for his article “Rethinking biking, and with the recent move to Providence I've even Set Theory,” American Mathemati- taken up rowing.” cal Monthly 121 (2014), no. 5. The –From AWM announcements prize citation reads in part: “Every mathematician knows that modern mathematics is an axiomatic system Daubechies and Voisin based on a theory of sets defined by Tom Leinster the Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms plus Receive International Awards the Axiom of Choice (ZFC). But how many of us can recite these axioms? Even after looking them for Women in Science up, are they in accord with our working understanding of sets? Or is the ZFC conception of sets necessarily nonintu- INGRID DAUBECHIES of Duke Univer- itive as a result of having to rectify the difficulties of naive sity and CLAIRE VOISIN of the Collège set theory discovered by Russell? In this paper, Tom Leinster de France have been awarded 2019 tackles this issue with clarity and finesse.” Leinster studied L’Oréal-UNESCO International in Oxford and Cambridge, doing a PhD on higher category Awards for Women in Science. theory with Martin Hyland, followed by postdoctoral posi- Daubechies, representing North tions in Cambridge and Paris and a stint at the University America, was recognized “for her of Glasgow before joining the faculty at Edinburgh. His exceptional contribution to the nu- interests lie mainly in applications of category theory, re- merical treatment of images and cently focusing on applications to geometry, analysis, and Ingrid Daubechies signal processing, providing stan- dard and flexible algorithms for the quantification of biological diversity. He is the author of data compression. Her innovative three books: Higher Operads, Higher Categories (Cambridge research on wavelet theory has led University Presss, 2004), Basic Category Theory (Cambridge to the development of treatment University Press, 2014), and Entropy and Diversity: The Ax- and image filtration methods used in iomatic Approach (in press). He has also written about the technologies from medical imaging role played by mathematicians in the mass suspicionless equipment to wireless communica- surveillance of citizens by governments and is a contribu- tion.” Voisin, representing Europe, tor to the research blog The n-Category Café. Leinster tells was honored “for her outstanding the Notices: “I spend much of my free time campaigning work in algebraic geometry. Her pi- for democratic rights in Catalonia, and am donating the Claire Voisin oneering discoveries have allowed Chauvenet prize money to the legal fund of the Catalan [mathematicians and scientists] to resolve fundamental prisoners on trial for holding a referendum.” questions on topology and Hodge structures of complex CATHY O’NEIL of ORCAA was awarded the Euler Book algebraic varieties.” Each award is worth 100,000 euros Prize for Weapons of Math Destruction (Crown, 2016). Ac- (about US$113,000). The L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in cording to the prize citation, this is “a singularly import- Science program annually honors five outstanding women ant book especially at this current historical juncture. It scientists from five regions—the Arab and African States, is well-written, engaging, and tackles an important issue, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Latin America, and North ‘the dark side of data science,’ in a thoughtful way. O’Neil America—for their contributions to the sciences, including convincingly and passionately argues that math is not just mathematics, computer science, chemistry, physics, and for solving the world’s problems; it is responsible also materials science. for fueling some of them. Her discussion of ethical issues and how mathematical models, data, and algorithms are —From a L’Oréal-UNESCO announcement used to manipulate society is important both socially and politically.” O’Neil received her PhD in mathematics from Harvard University and taught at Barnard College before MAY 2019 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY 763 Mathematics People NEWS entering the private sector with the hedge fund D. E. Shaw writing. She chaired the national Curriculum Renewal and for the software company RiskMetrics. In 2011 she Across the First Two Years (CRAFTY) committee and pro- began working as a data scientist. She is the founder of posed, organized, coordinated, and assisted in rewrites of ORCAA, an algorithmic auditing company. a series of articles in MAA Focus highlighting mathematics PHILIP URI TREISMAN of the University of Texas at Austin curriculum renewal projects throughout the United States. was honored with the 2019 Gung and Hu Award for Dis-