News

Distinguished UM Math Professor Maxim Kontsevich Wins 2008 Crafoord Prize

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.

UM Co-sponsors Israeli Math Conference

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.

Mathematician Ranked as Best Occupation

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.

Department Welcomes New Faculty

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 PhD 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 PhD 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.

UM Math Professor Elected to AMS Council

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.

UM Putnam Team Excels in Competition

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.

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.