Professor Akshay Venkatesh is one of sixteen named Simons Investigators for 2018. Professor Venkatesh is one of three named in Mathematics.  The Simons Foundation describes the major focus of his work being “the topology of locally symmetric spaces, in particular on new phenomena that occur when ones leave the setting of Shimura varieties.” Professor Venktatesh joins Stanford Physics professor Xiao-Liange Qi in this year’s group of Simons Investigators.

      The Mathematics Department celebrated the completion of the academic year with the commencement celebration on June 17, 2018.  This was a joint celebration and graduation with  the Mathematical & Computational Science, Data Science, and Statistics departments.  The speaker of the ceremony was Chiara Sabbati, Professor of Biomedical Data Science and Statistics.

  Congratulations go out to Stanford Mathematics graduate students Tony Feng and Laurent Cote.  Tony Feng has won the Achievement Reward for College Scientists (ARCS) and Laurent Cote has won the Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering. The ARCS Scholar Fellowship recognizes outstanding students in the natural sciences and engineering who demonstrate the potential to make significant contributions to the scientific and technological strength of the nation.

  Congratulations to Stanford Mathematics PhD candidate Chao Li who has received the 2018 Pólya Teaching Fellow Award. Named in honor of George Pólya, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford from 1940 to 1953, this award honors one graduating PhD student each year for outstanding teaching during their time in the program.