Profs. Peter Petersen and Romyar T. Sharifi named 2020 AMS Fellows

Two UCLA mathematics professors have been named 2020 Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Peter Petersen has been selected for “contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric analysis,” and Romyar T. Sharifi for “contributions to number theory and service to the mathematical community, particularly graduate education.”

The Fellows of the American Mathematical Society program recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. To learn more about the 2020 class of AMS fellows, visit their website. 

Conference to Celebrate Fifty Years of the Tomita-Takesaki Theory

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of publication of Professor Masamichi Takesaki’s Springe Lecture Notes volume, “Tomita’s theory of modular Hilbert algebras and its applications.” Tomita–Takesaki theory is a method for constructing modular automorphisms of von Neumann algebras from the polar decomposition of a certain involution. It is essential for the theory of type III factors, and has led to a good structure theory for these previously intractable objects.

A conference will be held to celebrate this special occasion on June 15-19, 2020 at the University of Tokyo, Japan. The conference is open to the public.

Visit here to register. 

PhD student Michelle Feng awarded JSMF’s 2019 Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

UCLA mathematics PhD student Michelle Feng has been selected for the prestigious James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF) 2019 Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. The fellowship is part of the Understanding Dynamic and Multi-Scale Systems program, which supports scholarship and research directed toward the discovery and refinement of theoretical and mathematical tools contributing to the continued development of the study of complex, adaptive, nonlinear systems. Students completing their doctoral training can benefit from postdoctoral training where such opportunities to broaden research experience and acquire new knowledge and skills.

Michelle’s research focuses on applications of algebraic topology to social, political, and spatial networks, including elections, city formation, and segregation. Some of her thesis research is described in this paper titled, “Persistent Homology of Geospatial Data: A Case Study with Voting.”