News
Optimal Configurations on the Sphere and Other Manifolds
April 30, 2010 – The Optimal Configurations on the Sphere and Other Manifolds Conference was held at Vanderbilt May 17-20, 2010, in conjunction with the 25th Annual Shanks Conference and Lecture. The conference brought together mathematicians and scientists for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the structure of particle systems under a variety of physical constraints. These...
Eighth Annual NCGOA Spring Institute
April 8, 2010 – The Department of Mathematics hosted the Eighth Annual Spring Institute on Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras May 10-19, 2010. The theme of the 2010 event was Von Neumann Algebras. The Spring Institute is a combination of spring school and international research conference. During the school portion of the meeting, mini-courses were given by Cyril Houdayer,...
New Department Prize Recognizes Excellence in Postdoctoral Research
February 12, 2010 – Romain Tessera of the CNRS at the ?cole Normale Sup?rieure in Lyon is the recipient of the first Samir Aldroubi and Amira Azhari Prize for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research ? a new award announced by the Department of Mathematics. The Aldroubi-Azhari Prize will be awarded every two years to recognize the research achievements of current...
Shanks Workshop on Subfactors and Fusion Categories
February 1, 2010 – Recent developments in the study of subfactors, planar algebras and fusion categories will be the focus of a two-day Shanks Workshop hosted by the Department of Mathematics February 13-14, 2010. The category of bimodules associated to a subfactor forms a natural fusion category. Several “exotic” such categories have been found in recent years, and Jones’...
New Faculty and Postdocs Join the Department
August 15, 2009 – The department welcomes one new faculty member and ten new postdoctoral fellows this fall. Ioana Suvaina joins the department as an Assistant Professor. She received her? Ph.D. from Stony Brook University in 2006 under the direction of Claude LeBrun. She then spent a year as an Instructor at the Courant Institute at New York University....
VU Mathematician Played Key Role in Moon Landing
July 20, 2009 – The U.S. is celebrating the moon landing that occured 40 years ago on July 20, 1969. Before that could happen,?as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) worked feverishly to meet Pres. John F. Kennedy?s goal of landing a man on the moon in five years, it had a daunting array of engineering problems to...
Mathematical Modeling in the Medical Sciences Conference
May 11, 2009 – The Mathematical Modeling in the Medical Sciences Conference will be held at Vanderbilt May 18-21, 2009, in conjunction with the 24th Annual Shanks Conference and Lecture. The conference is a forum for all areas of biomathematics, which encompasses the application of mathematical methods to the study of living organisms. Mathematics plays an essential role in...
Mathematics Students Honored for Outstanding Achievements
May 1, 2009 – The Department of Mathematics honored four outstanding students at its annual student awards reception in April 2009. This year’s graduate honors went to Matt Calef for excellence in teaching and to both Bogdan Nica and Iva Spaculova for outstanding research. Mathematics senior Ayla Gafni was recognized for undergraduate achievement. This year’s Bjarni Jónsson Prize for...
Seventh Annual Spring Institute on NCGOA May 4-13, 2009
April 29, 2009 – The Department of Mathematics will host the Seventh Annual Spring Institute on Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras May 4-13, 2009. The theme of this year’s event is “Geometry over F1, Noncommutative Geometry and Zeta.” The Spring Institute is a combination of spring school and international research conference. During the school portion of the meeting, mini-courses...
Jesse Peterson Receives Sloan Fellowship
March 26, 2009 – One of Vanderbilt’s newest mathematics faculty, Jesse Peterson, has been named among a select group of 118 young scientists, economists and mathematicians as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Peterson will receive a $50,000 research grant from the Sloan Foundation. Working under the supervision of Sorin Popa, a recognized leader in the field of operator...