Richard P. Stanley, an Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor at the University of Miami, will receive the 2022 AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Stanley has revolutionized enumerative combinatorics, revealing deep connections with other branches of mathematics, such as commutative algebra, topology, algebraic geometry, probability, convex geometry, and representation theory. You can read the full press release, including his response and biographical sketch below. December 16, 2021
Last December Roger Penrose was awarded (one half of) the 2020 Nobel prize in physics for "the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity". To celebrate this event, Greg Galloway has co-organized the (online) conference, "Singularity theorems, causality, and all that - A tribute to Roger Penrose", June 14-18, 2021. June 2, 2021
Professor Michelle Wachs Galloway has been selected by the Faculty Senate to receive the 2021 Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award. She will be honored at a virtual ceremony on Monday, April 12, 2021 at 5PM, together with the recipients of the Faculty Senate James W. McLamore Outstanding Service Award, the Faculty Senate Outstanding Teaching Award, and the Faculty Senate Chair Special Award. The Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award recognizes either a single outstanding scholarly achievement or a lifetime of distinguished accomplishment in any area of research or creative activity. April 12, 2021
Two members of the department, Dr. Nikolai Saveliev and Dr. Christopher Scaduto, are part of the team that was awarded a prestigious FRG Grant by the National Science Foundation. The team also includes Dr. David Auckly (Kansas State University), Dr. John Baldwin (Boston College), Dr. Aliakbar Daemi (Washington University St. Louis), Dr. Daniel Ruberman (Brandeis University), and Dr. Matthew Stoffregen (MIT). This collaborative project will develop new gauge-theoretic tools that will advance our understanding of three- and four-dimensional manifolds. It will also study the interaction between different three-dimensional Floer homology theories, and between Floer homology and invariants of four-dimensional manifolds. April 29, 2020
Phillip Griffiths, former IAS Director (1991-2003) and current Professor Emeritus in the IAS School of Mathematics and Arts and Sciences Distinguished Scholar in Mathematics at the University of Miami, has been elected a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. November 19, 2019
The Department of Mathematics salutes Ken Baker and Pengzi Miao on their promotions to Full Professor. Click below to learn more about each in his own words. October 15, 2019
The Department of Mathematics is delighted to welcome Christopher Scaduto to the faculty. Click below to learn more about Chris in his own words. October 14, 2019
Each spring semester the Graduate School hosts an Annual Awards Ceremony to showcase the important contributions and achievements made during the academic year by our graduate students and faculty in support of graduate education and the teaching, research, and service missions of our institution. This year, Eric Ling, Ph.D. in Mathematics, received the Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award. This award recognizes one graduate student distinguished in scholarly or research pursuits in a graduate program at UM. The award winner would have made a distinctive and discernible contribution to the field of study to which the student belongs during the academic year. April 10, 2019
The Department of Mathematics is delighted to welcome two new faculty members this year: Xi Huo and Nathan Totz. Click below to learn more about each in their own words. October 17, 2017
Professor Ludmil Katzarkov is a 2017 recipient of the Simons Investigator Award. Awarded by the Simons Foundation, it is one of the most distinguished prizes in mathematics. Professor Katrzarkov is an expert in algebraic geometry and its connections to theoretical physics. The citation from the Simons Foundation notes that he "has introduced novel ideas and techniques in geometry, proving long-standing conjectures (e.g., the Shaverevich conjecture) and formulating new conceptual approaches to open questions in homological mirror symmetry, rationality of algebraic varieties and symplectic geometry". August 07, 2017
The Department of Mathematics is delighted to welcome four new Research Assistant Professors, Andrew Harder, Manuel Rivera, José Samper, and Vladimir Vega, and a new Postdoctoral Fellow, Xiao Yu. Click below to learn more about each in their own words. September 06, 2016
"Prevention and Control of Zika as a Mosquito-Borne and Sexually Transmitted Disease: A Mathematical Modeling Analysis" has been published in Scientific Reports. The lead author of the article is Professor Daozhou Gao of Shanghai Normal University, who received a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 2012 at the University of Miami at the direction of Professor Shigui Ruan. Professor Ruan is the corresponding author of the article. He has now been interviewed about the role of sex in the transmission of Zika by several PBS radio stations in Florida and by CTV in Canada. June 24, 2016
Professor Ludmil Katzarkov has been named a Cooper Fellow, one of the highest honors in the College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Katzarkov is an expert in algebraic geometry and its connections to theoretical physics. He will receive research and teaching support for a three-year term. April 26, 2016
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Wachs Galloway on being named as a recipient of a newly created "Provost's Funding Award". This new award recognizes productivity in research, as evidenced by sustained, peer-reviewed extramural funding. Professor Wachs Galloway has been funded continuously since 1981 by the National Science Foundation for her research in algebraic combinatorics. She will be honored at the ceremony on April 1, 2016 to celebrate the recipients of the Provost's Awards for Scholarly Activity and Research. The event will be held at the Fieldhouse on the Coral Gables campus from 4 to 6 PM. March 02, 2016
The Department of Mathematics is delighted to welcome two new postdoctoral fellows this year: Nima Anvari and Jing Chen. Click below to learn more about each in their own words. October 13, 2015
New interdisciplinary program offers a fast-paced, rigorous curriculum in mathematics and financial instruments, and prepares students for a rewarding career in the financial industry. September 22, 2015
The Department of Mathematics is delighted to welcome three new faculty members this year: Hamed Amini, Bruno Benedetti and Morgan Brown. Click below to learn more about each in their own words. September 17, 2015
Professor Shigui Ruan is one of the world's leading scholars in the sciences, according to Thomson Reuters. Professor Ruan's research focuses on nonlinear dynamics of differential equations. He also uses mathematical models to study biological, epidemiological and medical problems, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and immune response to HIV infections. August 11, 2015
Professor Nikolai Saveliev will visit the UK from October 25, 2015 to November 7, 2015. His research interests are in low-dimensional topology and gauge theory. Professor Saveliev will be based at University College London during his visit. August 04, 2015
Professor Chris Cosner has been named a Cooper Fellow, one of the highest honors in the College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Cosner is an expert on the development of mathematical models addressing the dispersal of organisms, and the intersection of mathematics and biology. He will receive research and teaching support for a three-year term. April 30, 2015
Distinguished Professor Maxim Kontsevich was among 84 new members and 21 foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Sciences in April. April 28, 2015
Mathematics Lecturer Dr. Patrick Bibby was honored by the Florida Section of the Mathematical Association of America as the winner of its 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award. The award was presented in St. Petersburg, Florida, on January 24, 2015. January 24, 2015
For the third time in two years, a member of the University of Miami mathematics faculty has been honored as a Simons Fellow: Professor Ludmil Katzarkov has received a Simons Fellowship for 2014. The Simons Fellows Program provides funds to faculty for a semester-long research leave from classroom teaching and administrative obligations. Professor Greg Galloway and Professor Michelle Wachs Galloway were 2013 Simons Fellows. August 15, 2014
Maxim Kontsevich is one of five inaugural winners of the 3 million dollar Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, financed in part by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. The Breakthrough Prize was created to make science lucrative and cool in a society that more often celebrates athletes, entertainers, politicians and business tycoons. June 30, 2014
The "huge range of opportunities for mathematicians" is the primary reason that the occupation has been chosen as the Best Job of 2014. April 16, 2014
Professor Richard Stanley joined the department this semester as an Arts and Sciences Distinguished Scholar. Professor Stanley has been a Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT since 1979. He has received numerous awards and distinctions, which include the George Pólya Prize in Applied Combinatorics in 1975 from the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Leroy P. Steele Prize in 2001 from the American Mathematical Society, and the Rolf Schock Prize in Mathematics in 2003 from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Professor Stanley held a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. January 06, 2014
Michelle Wachs Galloway (Mathematics), J. Tomás López (Art and Art History), and Harvey Siegel (Philosophy), all faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences, are recipients of the 2013 Provost's Award for Scholarly Activity, which recognizes demonstrated excellence in research by either a single unique achievement or several years of stellar scholarly productivity. April 16, 2013
Professor Greg Galloway (chair) and Professor Michelle Wachs Galloway have been named Simons Fellows for the 2013-2014 academic year. The fellowship is named for Jim Simons, a mathematician who founded Renaissance Technologies, one of the world's most successful hedge funds that operates based on mathematical and statistical methods. Awarded through his Simons Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing math and science research, the Simons Fellowship extends the professors' semester research sabbatical into a year-long period of study. Both professors will spend a portion of their fellowships in Berkeley, California. Galloway is an organizer of a semester-long program on mathematical relativity at Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), and will serve there as an Eisenbud Professor. Wachs will be a visiting scholar in the math department of the University of California, Berkeley, where she will continue her research in algebraic combinatorics. January 29, 2013
Professor Michelle Wachs (Galloway) has been named as one of the inaugural Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. She has been chosen for this honor in in recognition of her "distinguished contributions to mathematics." Professor Wachs will be inducted in a ceremony at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego this January. October 01, 2012
Dr. Valerie Hower joined the department in January 2012 as Assistant Professor of Mathematics. Before joining us she was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and prior to that held a postdoctoral position at Georgia Tech. Dr. Hower received her Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Georgia. She works in Genomics, Discrete Mathematical Biology, and Probabilistic and Topological Methods in Data Analysis. September 01, 2012
Maxim Kontsevich has won yet another prestigious prize. This time it is the 3 million dollar Fundamental Physics Prize, a new prize that acknowledges accomplishments in fundamental physics and advances in closely related fields. The prize recognizes Kontsevich for "numerous contributions which have taken the fruitful interaction between modern theoretical physics and mathematics to new heights, including the development of homological mirror symmetry, and the study of wall-crossing phenomena". July 31, 2012
We were delighted to learn that Maxim Kontsevich, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at UM, has been awarded the Shaw Prize in the Mathematical Sciences. The Shaw Prize was established in 2002 and consists of awards given annually in three areas: the Mathematical Sciences, Life and Medical Sciences, and Astronomy. Each prize carries a monetary award of $1,000,000. The prize was awarded to Kontsevich for his pioneering works in algebra, geometry and mathematical physics and, in particular, deformation quantization, motivic integration and mirror symmetry. Professor Kontsevich is one of the most celebrated and influential mathematicians of our times. In addition to the Shaw Prize, he was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998 and the Crafoord Prize in 2008. Professor Kontsevich is a permanent member of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES) in France. May 29, 2012
Professor Robert Stephen Cantrell was elected April 25, 2012 as the new First Vice-Chair of the University of Miami Faculty Senate, assuming the role June 1, 2012. Nominations for Senate officers were made by a Nominating Committee, itself elected by the Senate. Dr. Cantrell has served as the Senate representative from the Department of Mathematics since 2004. He has served on three Senate committees, Budget and Compensation, Academic Standards, and the Tenure Review Board, and has chaired the first two committees on two occasions and the third once. During the academic year 2011-2012, he was the College of Arts and Sciences representative on the General Welfare Committee and Chair of the Budget and Compensation Committee. April 25, 2012
Dr. Cantrell's areas of mathematical and scientific interest are partial differential equations, nonlinear functional analysis and mathematical biology, with a focus on spatial ecology, evolutionary biology and epidemiology. He is the author or co-author of 75+ papers, co-author (with Chris Cosner) of the 2003 book Spatial Ecology via Reaction-Diffusion Equations, and co-editor (with Chris Cosner and Shigui Ruan) of the 2009 volume of essays Spatial Ecology. He has served as Director of the University of Miami Institute for Theoretical and Mathematical Ecology since its inception in 2007. His current research activity centers on the ecological effects and evolution of dispersal in population biology, ecology and mathematical epidemiology.
In December 2010, eleven University of Miami mathematics students sat for the William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition. The Putnam exam is a six-hour extremely challenging exam given annually to undergraduate students from throughout the United States and Canada. This year 4,293 students from 546 colleges and universities participated. January 20, 2011
The University of Miami finished 31st, its highest ranking in more than 30 years. Individually, Frank Rodriguez and Juan Bustos received special mention by finishing in the top five percent of all participants.
In the last three years, the Mathematics Department has hired three new faculty members, Drew Armstrong, Ken Baker, and Pengzi Miao. Dr. Armstrong received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Cornell in 2006. Prior to joining the department in Fall 2009, Dr. Armstrong was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Armstrong works in the area of algebraic combinatorics, and is a leading expert on the combinatorics of Coxeter groups. Dr. Baker received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. He joined our department in Fall 2008, following postdoctoral positions at the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. Dr. Baker works in the area of geometric topology and is a leading expert in Knot Theory. Dr. Miao graduated from Stanford in 2003, and will join our department this fall, after holding positions at UC Santa Barbara and Monash University. He works in the area of geometric analysis and is a leading expert in geometric aspects of general relativity. September 01, 2010
Continuing in efforts to establish global partnerships, the University of Miami co-sponsored an international mathematics conference in the Galilee region of Israel, along with ORT Braude College and Bar-Ilan University. More than 100 mathematicians from around the world convened in Nahariya, Israel in May 2009 for the conference. A grant from the National Science Foundation enabled many outstanding mathematicians from the US to participate. October 01, 2009
Professor Michelle Wachs Galloway has been elected as a Member-at-Large of the Council of the American Mathematical Society. She began her three year term in February 2009. The Council is the governing board of the AMS, which has a membership of over 30,000 individuals and 553 institutions world wide. March 01, 2009
Nineteen years ago, Jennifer Courter set out on a career path that has since provided her with a steady stream of lucrative, low-stress jobs. Now, her occupation -- mathematician -- has landed at the top spot on a new study ranking the best and worst jobs in the U.S. January 07, 2009
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Crafoord Prize to University of Miami Distinguished Professor Maxim Kontsevich, who was awarded a Fields Medal in 1998. January 17, 2008