Welcome to the Department of Mathematics!
Our Department is at an exciting time in our history. We expect to grow dramatically over the next decade, and continue to make advances in fundamental science and our teaching mission.
Our goals as a department are:
1. To provide world class education to our undergraduate and graduate students, and to do this in a way that is welcoming and supportive to all.
2. To perform mathematical research at the highest level, on the fundamental problems in the world.
3. To be ambassadors for mathematics within Vanderbilt, in the Nashville community, and beyond.
Among our 21 research faculty, our research covers a wide swath of mathematics, including homotopy theory, operator algebras, geometric group theory, epidemiology, differential geometry, approximation theory, signal processing, differential equations, numerical analysis, mathematical physics, graph theory, and number theory.
Our faculty has 3 International Congress of Mathematicians speakers, 9 Fellows of the AMS, 2 Fellows of SIAM, 5 Sloan Fellows, 2 NSF CAREER awardees, a Conant Prize winner, a Steele Prize winner, a Simons Fellow, a Humboldt Prize winner, 3 AMS plenary speakers, and a Mirzakhani lecturer.
Department News
Katherine Booth awarded NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship
Feb. 4, 2025—Katherine Booth was awarded a Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Science Foundation in February 2025. This is a highly prestigious award, given to about 40 mathematicians around the country each year. Katherine is a non-degree-seeking graduate student at Vanderbilt, and will receive her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in Spring 2025. Katherine’s research...
Dr. Lorenzo Gavassino featured in Discover Magazine
Jan. 16, 2025—The research of Dr. Lorenzo Gavassino, postdoctoral researcher in the department, and member of the VandyGRAF initiative has recently been featured in Discover Magazine: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/mathematician-reveals-strange-new-enigmas-for-time-travelers According to the article, Lorenzo’s article shows that “The laws of physics suggest [a time traveler’s] memory would be wiped clean as soon as they returned to the present.” Dr....
Prof. Marcelo Disconzi Speaks at Dyer Observatory
Dec. 2, 2024—Prof. Marcelo Disconzi gave a lecture at the Dyer Observatory on Nov 21, 2024. The title of his talk was: When Mathematics & Physics Collide: Black-Hole Mergers, Neutron Stars, and the Theory of Relativity. From Marcelo’s abstract: “In 1915, Einstein developed the general theory of relativity, a theory born out of what he called his...
Prof. Dan Margalit and Isaiah Williams ’25 Unravel Mysteries of Math
Nov. 27, 2024—A new video made by the College of Arts & Science communications team aims to answer some of the frequently searched questions about mathematics. Prof. Dan Margalit, Chair of Mathematics and Stevenson Chair, along with undergraduate Isaiah Williams, class of ’25 fielded questions and answered them in the madcap video made by Liz Chagnon. The...