Message from the Chair
It has certainly been an eventful time since our previous department newsletter in late 2019. Late in Winter Quarter 2020, we quickly switched to online teaching and advising -- indeed, all departmental operations -- and I am very thankful for the work everyone put in to make this happen. It wasn't easy, but our faculty, staff, postdocs, and students all did more than their share.
In this newsletter, you can read about many honors and awards: Julie Zhang was named the Dean's Medalist for the Natural Sciences in June 2020. Tatiana Toro was awarded the 2020 Blackwell-Tapia Prize and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Gunther Uhlmann won the 2021 Birkhoff Prize. Chris Burdzy was named the President-Elect of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Bobby Wilson was named as one of the inaugural Karen EDGE fellows. You can find details about these great achievements and more in the rest of the newsletter. Congratulations to all!
Three faculty members retired last year: Don Marshall, Jim Morrow, and Paul Smith. They have all had long, successful careers in our department, affecting many students and colleagues over the years, and their contributions will be missed. Faculty members may choose to continue teaching after retirement, and Don has made that choice. The other two are focusing on other activities, mathematical and otherwise.
We hired six new faculty this year! We have five new assistant professors: Isabel Vogt, Stefan Steinerberger, Gaku Liu, Eric Larson, and Alexis Drouot. Zhixu Su joins us as an Acting Assistant Professor, and we also have a group of new postdocs: Silvia Ghinassi, Giovanni Inchiostro, Masahiro Nakahara, Harry Richman, and Yang Zhang. This is not the easiest year to start a new job, but we are very happy to have all of them here.
We look forward to vaccines, eventually resuming in-person operations, and seeing everyone in our mathematical community face-to-face. Until then, see you on Zoom!
- John Palmieri
