Ravi Vakil
Ravi Damodar Vakil | |
|---|---|
 Vakil in 2008 | |
| Born | February 22, 1970 Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian American |
| Education | University of Toronto (BSc, MSc) Harvard University (PhD) |
| Awards | Chauvenet Prize (2014)[1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Stanford University MIT Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisor | Joe Harris |
Ravi D. Vakil (born February 22, 1970) is a Canadian-American mathematician working in algebraic geometry. He is the current president of the American Mathematical Society.
Education and career
[edit]Vakil attended high school at Martingrove Collegiate Institute in Etobicoke, Ontario, where he won several mathematical contests and olympiads.[2] After earning a BSc and MSc from the University of Toronto in 1992, he completed a PhD in mathematics at Harvard University in 1997 under Joe Harris.[3] He has since been an instructor at both Princeton University and MIT. Since the fall of 2001, he has taught at Stanford University,[4] becoming a full professor in 2007.
Contributions
[edit]Vakil is an algebraic geometer and his research work spans over enumerative geometry, topology, Gromov–Witten theory, and classical algebraic geometry. He has solved several old problems in Schubert calculus. Among other results, he proved that all Schubert problems are enumerative[5] over the real numbers, a result that resolves an issue mathematicians have worked on for at least two decades.
Awards and honors
[edit]Vakil has received many awards, including an NSF CAREER Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, an American Mathematical Society Centennial Fellowship, a G. de B. Robinson prize for the best paper published (2000) in the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin,[6] and the André-Aisenstadt Prize from the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques at the Université de Montréal (2005), and the Chauvenet Prize[1] (2014).
In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society[7] before being elected as president in 2024. Vakil began his two-year term on 1 February 2025[8]
Mathematics contests
[edit]He was a member of the Canadian team in three International Mathematical Olympiads, winning silver, gold (perfect score), and gold in 1986, 1987, and 1988 respectively. He was also the fourth person to be a four-time Putnam Fellow in the history of the contest. Also, he has been the coordinator of weekly Putnam preparation seminars at Stanford.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Vakil, Ravi (2011). "The Mathematics of Doodling". Amer. Math. Monthly. 118 (2): 116–129. doi:10.4169/amer.math.monthly.118.02.116. S2CID 30987758.
- ^ "CMO Winners sorted by school by rank". Canadian Mathematical Society. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
- ^ Mathematics genealogy
- ^ Stanford mathematics faculty
- ^ Vakil, Ravi (September 1, 2006). "Schubert induction". Annals of Mathematics. 164 (2): 489–512. doi:10.4007/annals.2006.164.489. ISSN 0003-486X.
- ^ List of the G. de B. Robinson award's recipients, retrieved August 12, 2021.
- ^ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved August 28, 2013.
- ^ Beebe, Elaine (January 2025). "Interview with Ravi Vakil" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 72 (2): 214. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
- ^ "STANFORD / Teacher, students revel in joy of high-level math". December 2, 2006.
External links
[edit]
- 1970 births
- University of Toronto alumni
- Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
- Stanford University faculty
- Algebraic geometers
- 20th-century American mathematicians
- 21st-century American mathematicians
- Canadian mathematicians
- People from Etobicoke
- Putnam Fellows
- Living people
- Canadian people of Indian descent
- Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
- International Mathematical Olympiad participants
- Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers