Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student
Encyclopedia
The Morgan Prize is an annual award given to an undergraduate student in the US, Canada, or Mexico who demonstrates superior mathematics
research. The $1,000 award, endowed by Mrs. Frank Morgan of Allentown, Pennsylvania
, was founded in 1995. The award is made jointly by the American Mathematical Society
, the Mathematical Association of America
, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
.
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
research. The $1,000 award, endowed by Mrs. Frank Morgan of Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...
, was founded in 1995. The award is made jointly by the American Mathematical Society
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.The society is one of the...
, the Mathematical Association of America
Mathematical Association of America
The Mathematical Association of America is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and applied mathematicians; computer scientists;...
, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics was founded by a small group of mathematicians from academia and industry who met in Philadelphia in 1951 to start an organization whose members would meet periodically to exchange ideas about the uses of mathematics in industry. This meeting led...
.
Previous winners
1996- Winner: Kannan SoundararajanKannan SoundararajanKannan Soundararajan is an Indian mathematician. He currently is a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Before moving to Stanford in 2006, he was a faculty at University of Michigan where he pursued his undergraduate studies...
(Analytic Number TheoryAnalytic number theoryIn mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Dirichlet's introduction of Dirichlet L-functions to give the first proof of Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic...
, University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
) - Honorable mention: Kiran KedlayaKiran KedlayaKiran Sridhara Kedlaya is an Indian American mathematician. He currently is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
(Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
)
1997
- Winner: Manjul BhargavaManjul BhargavaManjul Bhargava is a Canadian-American mathematician of Indian origin. He is the R. Brandon Fradd Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University...
(AlgebraAlgebraAlgebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...
, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) - Honorable mention: Lenhard NgLenhard NgLenhard Ng is an American mathematician working primarily on symplectic geometry. Ng is an associate professor of mathematics at Duke University.- Personal life :...
(Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
)
1998
- Winner: Jade Vinson (AnalysisMathematical analysisMathematical analysis, which mathematicians refer to simply as analysis, has its beginnings in the rigorous formulation of infinitesimal calculus. It is a branch of pure mathematics that includes the theories of differentiation, integration and measure, limits, infinite series, and analytic functions...
and GeometryGeometryGeometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, Washington University) - Honorable mention: Vikaas S. Sohal (Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
)
1999
- Winner: Daniel BissDaniel BissDaniel Kálmán Biss is an American mathematician and State Representative for the 17th district in the Illinois House of Representatives, serving since 2011...
(Combinatorial Group TheoryCombinatorial group theoryIn mathematics, combinatorial group theory is the theory of free groups, and the concept of a presentation of a group by generators and relations...
and TopologyTopologyTopology is a major area of mathematics concerned with properties that are preserved under continuous deformations of objects, such as deformations that involve stretching, but no tearing or gluing...
, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) - Honorable mention: Aaron F. Archer (Harvey Mudd CollegeHarvey Mudd CollegeHarvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds....
)
2000
- Winner: Sean McLaughlin (Proof of the Dodecahedral ConjectureDodecahedral conjectureThe dodecahedral conjecture in geometry is intimately related to sphere packing.László Fejes Tóth, a 20th century Hungarian geometer, considered the Voronoi decomposition of any given packing of unit spheres...
, University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
) - Honorable mention: Samit Dasgupta (Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
)
2001
- Winner: Jacob LurieJacob LurieJacob Alexander Lurie is an American mathematician, who is currently a professor at Harvard University.-Life:While in school, Lurie took part in the International Mathematical Olympiad, where he won a gold medal with a perfect score in 1994...
(Lie AlgebrasLie algebraIn mathematics, a Lie algebra is an algebraic structure whose main use is in studying geometric objects such as Lie groups and differentiable manifolds. Lie algebras were introduced to study the concept of infinitesimal transformations. The term "Lie algebra" was introduced by Hermann Weyl in the...
, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) - Honorable mention: Wai Ling Yee (University of WaterlooUniversity of WaterlooThe University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
)
2002
- Winner: Ciprian ManolescuCiprian ManolescuCiprian Manolescu is a Romanian mathematician. He is presently an Associate Professor in the mathematics department at the University of California, Los Angeles....
(Floer HomologyFloer homologyFloer homology is a mathematical tool used in the study of symplectic geometry and low-dimensional topology. First introduced by Andreas Floer in his proof of the Arnold conjecture in symplectic geometry, Floer homology is a novel homology theory arising as an infinite dimensional analog of finite...
, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) - Honorable mention: Michael Levin (MITMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
)
2003
- Winner: Joshua Greene (Proof of the Kneser conjectureKneser graphIn graph theory, the Kneser graph is the graph whose vertices correspond to the -element subsets of a set of elements, and where two vertices are connected if and only if the two corresponding sets are disjoint...
, Harvey Mudd CollegeHarvey Mudd CollegeHarvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds....
) - Honorable mention: None
2004
- Winner: Melanie WoodMelanie WoodMelanie Matchett Wood is an American mathematician who became the first female American to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her Ph.D...
(Belyi-extending maps and P-orderings, Duke UniversityDuke UniversityDuke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
) - Honorable mention: Karen Yeats (University of WaterlooUniversity of WaterlooThe University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
)
2005
- Winner: Reid W. BartonReid W. BartonReid W. Barton was one of the most successful performers in the International Science Olympiads. He is an MIT alumnus.- Biography:Barton is the son of two environmental engineers...
(Packing Densities of Patterns, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
) - Honorable mention: Po-Shen Loh (University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
)
2006
- Winner: Jacob Fox (Ramsey theoryRamsey theoryRamsey theory, named after the British mathematician and philosopher Frank P. Ramsey, is a branch of mathematics that studies the conditions under which order must appear...
and graph theoryGraph theoryIn mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of...
, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
) - Honorable mention: None
2007
- Winner: Daniel Kane (Number TheoryNumber theoryNumber theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
) - Honorable mention: None
2008
- Winner: Nathan Kaplan (Algebraic number theoryAlgebraic number theoryAlgebraic number theory is a major branch of number theory which studies algebraic structures related to algebraic integers. This is generally accomplished by considering a ring of algebraic integers O in an algebraic number field K/Q, and studying their algebraic properties such as factorization,...
, Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
) - Honorable mention: None
2009
- Winner: Aaron Pixton (Algebraic topologyAlgebraic topologyAlgebraic topology is a branch of mathematics which uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify up to homotopy equivalence.Although algebraic topology...
and number theoryNumber theoryNumber theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
, Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
) - Honorable mention: Andrei Negut (Algebraic cobordism theory and dynamical systems, Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
)
2010
- Winner: Scott Duke Kominers (Number theoryNumber theoryNumber theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
, computational geometryComputational geometryComputational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems are also considered to be part of computational...
, and mathematical economicsMathematical economicsMathematical economics is the application of mathematical methods to represent economic theories and analyze problems posed in economics. It allows formulation and derivation of key relationships in a theory with clarity, generality, rigor, and simplicity...
, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) - Honorable mention: Maria Monks (CombinatoricsCombinatoricsCombinatorics is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of finite or countable discrete structures. Aspects of combinatorics include counting the structures of a given kind and size , deciding when certain criteria can be met, and constructing and analyzing objects meeting the criteria ,...
and number theoryNumber theoryNumber theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and Cambridge University)
2011
- Winner: Maria Monks (CombinatoricsCombinatoricsCombinatorics is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of finite or countable discrete structures. Aspects of combinatorics include counting the structures of a given kind and size , deciding when certain criteria can be met, and constructing and analyzing objects meeting the criteria ,...
and number theoryNumber theoryNumber theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and Cambridge University) - Honorable mention: Michael ViscardiMichael ViscardiMichael Anthony Viscardi of San Diego, California is a young mathematician who won the 2005 Siemens Westinghouse Competition and Davidson Fellowship with a mathematical project on the Dirichlet problem, whose applications include describing the flow of heat across a metal surface, winning $100,000...
(Algebraic geometryAlgebraic geometryAlgebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which combines techniques of abstract algebra, especially commutative algebra, with the language and the problems of geometry. It occupies a central place in modern mathematics and has multiple conceptual connections with such diverse fields as complex...
, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
), Yufei Zhao (CombinatoricsCombinatoricsCombinatorics is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of finite or countable discrete structures. Aspects of combinatorics include counting the structures of a given kind and size , deciding when certain criteria can be met, and constructing and analyzing objects meeting the criteria ,...
and number theoryNumber theoryNumber theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
, MITMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
)
External links
- Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize at the American Mathematical Society
- List Morgan Prize Winners