Autumn 2012 Volume 7 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1ntegraL NEWS FROM THE MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT AT MIT Annual Retreat Inside The first Mathematics Department Retreat took place late September, organized by • New Faculty 2 our graduate students. Over 150 depart- • Faculty and Student Awards 3 ment members, families, and guests trav- • Donor Profile and Building 2 4 eled to Purity Spring Resort in the White Mountains in New Hampshire for a splen- • Letter from Haynes Miller 5 did weekend of hiking, canoeing, picking • Department Retreat 6 mushrooms, doing mathematics and relax- • 2012 Doctorates 7 ing. Late nights laughing around the bon- • Alumni Corner, Outreach 8 fire and playing board games in the lodge made for a memorable time. We expect the Retreat to become an annual tradition. Building 2 Renovation MITx and edX Dear Friends, Preparations for the Building 2 renovation In other activities, the Department has been Greetings from MIT Mathematics! gathered speed over the summer. We’ve considering ways to participate in edX, the Faculty recruiting was tremendous last worked closely with Ann Beha Architects initiative for online education. The edX en- year and brought us four fantastic new and MIT planners to arrive at an excit- terprise is building technology to enhance individuals: Professors Alice Guionnet ing scheme that adds common spaces and the learning experience for MIT students (probability), Larry Guth (geometry and offices, mezzanines and skylights, and and to reach thousands or millions of stu- harmonic analysis), Bill Minicozzi (geo- takes good advantage of our outlooks over dents worldwide. The potential is extraordi- metric analysis and PDEs), and Assistant the Charles River. The schedule calls for nary, but the uncertainties are many. We are Professor Aaron Naber (Ricci solitons, construction to begin this summer. We’ll excited about the possibilities and we will collapsing theory). Jörn Dunkel (physical pack up our things and move to temporary work on overcoming the challenges. applied mathematics) will join us next year quarters in Building E17/18, which is being Visiting Committee refurbished too. Mathematics faculty and as Assistant Professor. I’ll close by thanking the members of our staff recently saw the E17/18 space during Visiting Committee, which convened this We filled two key staff positions with out- a lunch we served there. It met with general past spring under the leadership of its new standing people: Barbara Peskin joined approval—proximity to the Kendall Square chair, Art Samberg. I also thank my col- the department in January as Academic restaurants and the T station being seen as leagues for their excellent presentations and Administrator, with primary responsibil- a plus, as noted by several people. We will participation. The meeting was successful, ity for running MAS, the Mathematics be sharing E17/18 with Economics, whose with broad enthusiasm expressed for the Academic Services office. This office, and regular building will be renovated at the results of our recent faculty recruiting ef- hence Barbara herself, is our nexus for all same time. When we return to Building 2 forts and lots of discussion about how the things educational. With the growth in the after the work is done, Building E17/18 will Department could and should participate in mathematics major, now at over 350 stu- serve as swing space for other departments edX. The renovation was a major agenda dents the third largest at MIT, and assorted as their turn comes for major renovation. new technologies and other changes, we item. Lead architect Ann Beha came and are most fortunate to have Barbara, one of We are deeply grateful to Jim and Marilyn inspired us with her vision for new spaces our former PhDs, here with us. Barbara’s Simons, and the Simons Foundation, for at MIT. She knows the campus well from extensive mathematical experience as well the leadership gift that is helping make this her days as an architecture graduate student as managerial experience from leader- project possible. We are in the process of here. We appreciate the time invested by ship positions at Dragon Systems and the raising additional funds to cover as much everyone, as well as their helpful ideas and International Computer Science Institute of the remaining renovation cost as we can. their support. The MIT Administration and the Facilities will serve us well. Cynthia Shen arrived Have a good year! two months ago as Administrative Officer. Department have worked with us intensively Cynthia runs Headquarters and is respon- to produce a design that meets our needs. sible for the oversight of all department Simons Lectures finances and staff. She brings a great depth This year’s Simons Lectures will take place Michael Sipser of knowledge from her prior MIT positions in May, given by Emmanuel Candès and Department Head in finance at CSAIL and RLE. Raphaël Rouquier. 2 New Faculty Alice Guionnet, Professor of Mathematics, comes to MIT Larry Guth, Professor of Mathematics, arrives from NYU’s from École Normale Supérieure Lyon, where she was on the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Guth works faculty since 2000. Guionnet is a probabilist, specializing in systolic and harmonic analysis. He’s made major break- in random matrices, large deviations, free probability, and throughs on several long-standing questions including the the statistical mechanics of disordered systems. As Direc- endpoint multilinear Kakeya conjecture and the Erdös dis- tor of Research at ENS Lyon, she built a top-ranking prob- tinct distances problem in combinatorial geometry. ability group. Her distinctions include the Miller Institute Guth received his PhD at MIT in 2005 under Tom Mrowka. Fellowship, the Loève Prize, the Silver Medal of CNRS, and Following appointments at Stanford and the University of Simons Investigator. She received her PhD from ENS Paris Toronto, he joined the Courant Institute as Professor of under the guidance of Gérard Ben Arous. Mathematics in 2011. Aaron Naber, William Minicozzi, Assistant Professor Professor of Math- of Mathematics, has ematics, arrives from been a CLE Moore Johns Hopkins Uni- Instructor here since versity, where he has 2009. Naber is a been on the faculty geometric analyst since 1994. Mini- working on the large- cozzi’s field is geo- scale structure of metric analysis. His Riemannian ge- groundbreaking work ometry, Ricci flow, with Toby Colding singularity theory of settled several ma- harmonic maps, and jor problems in the Kähler geometry. theory of embedded Naber completed minimal surfaces his PhD at Princeton of 3 manifolds. For University in 2009 these contributions, under Gang Tian. they shared the 2010 Veblen Prize in Geometry. Mini- cozzi received his PhD from Stanford University in 1994 under Richard Schoen. 3 Faculty Achievements Student Awards Igor Rodnianski was awarded the ten lectures on determinantal point Graduate students Sheel Ganatra, 2011 Fermat Prize by the Toulouse processes and representation theory. Hoeskuldur Halldorsson, and Alejan- Mathematics Institute, “for his funda- Paul Seidel gave the 2012 Mordell dro Morales received the Charles and mental contributions to the study of Lecture at Cambridge University and Holly Housman Award for excellence the equations of general relativity and the 2011-2012 Distinguished Lecture in undergraduate teaching. Steven Sam of the propagation of light on curved Series at UCLA. David Vogan was received the Charles W. and Jennifer C. space-times.” Bonnie Berger was elected President of the American Johnson Prize for an outstanding paper elected fellow of the American Acad- Mathematical Society, starting Feb- accepted for publication. emy of Arts and Sciences and fellow ruary 2013. Undergraduate Fan Wei ’12 received the Jon A. Bucsela Prize in Math- of the International Society for Com- Ju-Lee Kim was promoted to Professor. putational Biology. Bjorn Poonen was ematics for distinguished scholastic elected fellow of the American Acade- Abhinav Kumar and Jonathan Kelner achievement, professional promise, my of Arts and Sciences. Alice Guion- were promoted to Associate Professor. and enthusiasm for mathematics. She net and Paul Seidel were chosen to be also received the Alice T. Schafer Prize Simons Investigators by the Simons Research Staff Awards for excellence in mathematics by an Foundation. Victor Kac was selected Alejandro Rodriguez and Andrew undergraduate woman in mathematics, given by the Association for Women to be a Simons Fellow by the Simons Sutherland each received the School in Mathematics. Undergraduate Amol Foundation. Mark Behrens received of Science Infinite Mile Award. Aggarwal ’15 and his mentor, gradu- the 2011 School of Science Prize Andrew was also awarded the Selfridge ate student Guozhen Wang, shared the for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. Prize for the top paper at the Algo- Hartley Rogers Jr. Prize for the best Pavel Etingof was selected to be the rithmic Number Theory Symposium. SPUR paper. Jacob Steinhardt ’12 re- next Robert E. Collins Distinguished He was recently promoted to Principal ceived a Hertz fellowship to support his Scholar. Jacob Fox was selected to be Research Scientist. graduate studies. George Arzeno ’14, the next recipient of the Edmund F. Jon Schneider ’13, Shawn Tsosie ’12, Kelly Research Award. Michael Sipser Staff Award and Fan Wei ’12 were Poster Session was selected to be the next holder of Erin McGrath, Director of Development Winners at the Joint Meetings of the the Barton L. Weller Professorship. for the Mathematics and Physics de- AMS and MAA. Alexei Borodin gave the 2012 London partments, received the 2012 MIT Mathematical Society Lectures at Excellence Award in the category of Another Putnam Record the University of Glasgow, a series of Serving the Client. We had a record-breaking year at the 2011 William Lowell Putnam Math- ematical Competition. An astonishing 36% of all high scorers in this North MLK Visiting Assistant Professor Terrence Blackman American competition were MIT stu- dents. Precisely speaking, of the 81 Terrence Blackman high scorers (Honorable Mention and is spending this year higher), MIT had 29, more than the with us as Dr.