From the AMS press release:Forty-six mathematical scientists from around the world have been named Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for 2021, the program's ninth year.The Fellows of the AMS designation recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. The AMS is pleased to present the class of 2021 Fellows who are being recognized by their peers for their contributions to the profession… read more about Lillian Pierce named Fellow of the AMS »
Working in the fields of computational and applied math, new math faculty member Hongkai Zhao develops models and algorithms that can solve problems in science and engineering. Much of Zhao’s recent work has focused on inverse and imaging problems, which have direct applications for medical technologies such as CT scans, MRI scans, ultrasound, optical tomography and radar imaging. Based on different physical models and imaging modalities, the goal is to construct images or infer desired biomedical information from the… read more about Hongkai Zhao: Creating Efficient Algorithms for Science and Engineering Applications »
In July, Duke distributed 150,000 masks to university staff, faculty and students as part of its return to work protocols, which require all members of the Duke community who come to campus to wear a mask and complete daily symptom monitoring. Offices and individuals in need of a transparent face covering can contact Duke Disability Management System for the spring semester. So far, Duke has distributed about 600 see-through masks to employees and students. “A clear mask can be the positive… read more about Professor Miller uses a see-through face mask to help communication »
Conceived as the brainchild of mathematician Ingrid Daubechies and fiber artist Dominique Ehrmann, the Mathemalchemy project is a large multimedia art installation that celebrates the creativity and beauty of mathematics. It is an exciting collaborative enterprise, driven by the energy and enthusiasm of twenty-three mathematical artists and artistic mathematicians. A majority of the Mathemalchemy team members (all doubly vaccinated) got together and built… read more about Mathemalchemy »
Duke Math sponsors the Mathematics Employment Experience for High School Students (MEEHS) program, led by Professor Kirsten Wickelgren (Math). In this program teams of high school students, teachers and researchers work together on mathematical problems and exposition during a week of the summer. Two high school teachers select about four students each to work alongside researchers on a single problem. This year's problem was data on 42 similar cases involving one prosecutor. The… read more about MEEHS use math to conclude jurors removed illegally »
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke students will soon emerge more prepared to use data to create new knowledge in a host of disciplines thanks to the newly launched Center for Computational Thinking (CCT). The new center is a response to the growing demands for more computational skills among new college graduates. It will infuse data literacy across the academic experience while simultaneously preparing students to consider the ethical, legal, and social impacts of technology.“The CCT will provide training in a co-curricular… read more about Duke Launches Center to Bring Computational Thinking to All Students »
Working in the fields of computational and applied math, new math faculty member Hongkai Zhao develops models and algorithms that can solve problems in science and engineering. Much of Zhao’s recent work has focused on inverse and imaging problems, which have direct applications for medical technologies such as CT scans, MRI scans, ultrasound, optical tomography and radar imaging. Based on different physical models and imaging modalities, the goal is to construct images or infer desired biomedical information from the… read more about Hongkai Zhao: Creating Efficient Algorithms for Science and Engineering Applications »
ACTIVE FACULTY ROBERT J. LEFKOWITZJames B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Medicine Robert Lefkowitz, M.D., has been a member of the Duke faculty since 1973 as a professor of medicine and a professor of biochemistry and chemistry. He won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, sharing the award with Brian Kobilka, who did postdoctoral work with Lefkowitz at Duke. The two were recognized for their work on a class of cell surface receptors that have become the target of prescription drugs,… read more about A Look at Duke's Nobel Laureates »
The National Science Foundation has awarded Duke University a $3 million, five-year Research Traineeship grant to develop a program for graduate students to develop expertise in using artificial intelligence (AI) for materials science research. The aiM (AI for Understanding and Designing Materials), program will fill a vital workforce gap by training the next generation in the new convergent field of materials and computer science research.“To achieve the promise of the U.S. Materials Genome Initiative of… read more about Filling an AI and Materials Science Training Gap »
Jonathan Mattingly, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, was interviewed on the mathematics of gerrymandering and the way computer generated maps can detect the problem. Read the article at Science News. read more about How Next-gen Computer Generated Maps Detect Partisan Gerrymandering »
Students returning to Duke University are participating in surveillance testing to help rapidly identify and isolate people who may have contracted the COVID-19 virus. This is done using pool testing, which combines nasal samples from five people for a single test to allow more testing using fewer resources. See the full video below, and hear Mathematics Prof. John Harer (beginning at 3:45 mark) discuss how math comes into play. read more about Pool Testing at Duke »
From sports analytics to game theory, and cryptography to diseases, the Department of Mathematics offers a unique set of classes to challenge and engage our students. Below is a sampling of Featured Courses we are currently offering. Please refer to our complete Course listing to see all our classes, plus refer to DukeHub for exact course times and instructors. Featured Courses MATH 89S: Game Theory and Democracy What is democracy? More specifically, how does one create rules for… read more about Featured Math Courses »
Duke mathematicians recount how they got involved with math in this scrapbook style narrative. Open the scrapbook to read. read more about Paths - A Project of Recollection by Mathematicians »
Duke's Ingrid Daubechies was one of four recipients of the 2020 Princess of Asturias Awards for Technical & Scientific Research. The annual award is presented by the Princess of Asturias Foundation. In citing Daubechies and the three other recipients, the Foundation said they "have made immeasurable, ground-breaking contributions to modern theories and techniques of mathematical data and signal processing. These constitute the foundations and backbone of the digital age (by enabling the compression of graphic files… read more about Ingrid Daubechies Receives Princess of Asturias Award for Technical & Scientific Research »
Duke University researchers have developed an AI tool that can turn blurry, unrecognizable pictures of people’s faces into eerily convincing computer-generated portraits, in finer detail than ever before.Previous methods can scale an image of a face up to eight times its original resolution. But the Duke team has come up with a way to take a handful of pixels and create realistic-looking faces with up to 64 times the resolution, ‘imagining’ features such as fine lines, eyelashes and stubble that weren’t there in the first… read more about Artificial Intelligence Makes Blurry Faces Look More Than 60 Times Sharper »
Today around the country scientists are pausing their usual activity and reflecting on race in our society, on the recent events around our country, on the murders of the black people which precipitated them, and on the underlining hard truths which are at their core. I encourage you to take a moment to explore ShutDownSTEM (https://www.shutdownstem.com/) and consider curtailing your regular work today in solidarity with the Black community and ShutDownSTEM. I personally plan to take some time… read more about #shutdownstem »
In 2020-2021, the Duke University Energy Initiative’s Energy Research Seed Fund will support projects addressing renewable energy’s integration into the grid, battery performance, electrochemical catalysts, utilities’ decision-making, the energy-water nexus, and energy’s connections with war and health.The Energy Research Seed Fund has a strong track record of investing in early-stage projects that go on to secure external support.The program will award six grants to projects involving thirteen faculty… read more about Energy Research Seed Fund awards six grants to Duke faculty to kickstart innovative projects »
Congratulations to Duke Math faculty member Cynthia Rudin on being awarded a 2020-2021 Energy Research Seed Fund grant. This year the Duke University Energy Initiative program awarded six grants to projects involving 13 faculty from five Duke schools, investing a total of $249,590 in promising new energy research. The program has a strong track record of investing in early-stage projects that go on to secure substantial external funding. Professor Rudin is working with Sudeepa Roy (Computer Science) and Alexander… read more about Duke Math faculty member awarded Energy Research Seed Fund grant »
We're proud of Math major Maria Paz Rios for her work in Colombia: "As part of the Duke for Colombia Campaign, and with the help of Bogotá Police and Red Cross Colombia, I was able to go to Soacha, one of the poorest sectors in Bogotá, and deliver 600 family kits with food and essential supplies to people that hadn't had anything to eat in days. This aid will support around 3,000 people in Soacha for two weeks! Thank you for allowing me to pursue this campaign while I was in school, which is when it was really… read more about Undergrad delivers food in Colombia »
Congratulations to the following student award winners from Duke University units in 2020. African & African American Studies John Hope Franklin Award for Academic Excellence: Elizabeth DuBard GrantlandKarla FC Holloway Award for University Service: Beza GebremariamMary McLeod Bethune Writing Award: Jenna ClaybornWalter C. Burford Award for Community Service: Kayla Lynn Corredera-Wells Art, Art History & Visual Studies … read more about Student Honors and Laurels for 2020 »
DURHAM, N.C. -- Eighteen Duke students and alumni have been awarded Fulbright placements to teach English, study and do research abroad during the 2020-2021 academic year.The Fulbright US Student Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, offering opportunities in over 140 countries. The Fulbright award is designed to facilitate cultural exchange and increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those of other countries.The awards are announced on a… read more about Eighteen Duke Students And Alumni Awarded Fulbright Scholarships »
Congratulations to Duke Mathematics Professor Alexander (Sasha) Kiselev for being named one of the 2020 Simons Fellows in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. The Simons Foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. It exists to support basic or discovery-driven scientific research undertaken in the pursuit of understanding the phenomena of our world. The Simons Fellows program extends academic leaves from one term to a full year, enabling… read more about Professor Kiselev named 2020 Simons Fellow »
Duke dance alumna Anne Talkington discusses how her research in biology, mathematics, and her training as a dancer came together to film a dance representing her graduate thesis work for the "Dance Your Ph.D." competition. Anne Talkington is an alum of the Duke dance program, having studied with the program between 2012 and 2016 in addition to her majors in biology and mathematics. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the Department of Mathematics, UNC-CH in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, and paid a… read more about Dance Your PhD with Anne Talkington »
A New Look at Ancient Handwriting Researchers have been analyzing the handwriting on these 2,800-year-old pottery fragments, with help from artificial intelligence. Duke mathematician Barak Sober and colleagues at Tel-Aviv University used a machine learning algorithm they developed to determine how many people wrote on pieces of broken pottery from Samaria, once the capital of ancient Israel. The fragments are important because they are among the few examples of handwritten texts to survive from… read more about A New Look at Ancient Handwriting »
Ingrid Daubechies has built a career on breaking barriers and following ideas. “I was always interested in what makes things work,” Daubechies, the James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering told the Wall Street Journal in a feature story published this week. Her study of mathematical structures called wavelets – now regularly referred to by others as “Daubechies wavelets” – made possible a wide use of data compression in a large number of applications common to everyday life – from… read more about Ingrid Daubechies, Making Waves »
A profile of Duke mathematician Ingrid Daubechies was published in the Wall Street Journal. read more about Mathematics Pioneer Ingrid Daubechies Has More Barriers to Break »
A startling experimental discovery about how fluids behave started a wave of important mathematical proofs. Duke mathematician Alexander Kiselev comments in the article in Quanta Magazine. read more about For Fluid Equations, a Steady Flow of Progress »
The 2019 Duke Math Meet was held on SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2019. Check out photos from the meet here: Fall 2019 photos The meet was sponsored in part by Jane Street Winners of the 2019 Math Meet DMM 2019 Team winner PRISMS: Tianyue Daniel Cao, Yichen Cedric Xiao, Jingdong Daniel Xiang, Tianze Peter Jiang, Yuxiao Tom Wang, Yuxuan Wendy Zheng Top five teams: PRISMS (Princeton International School of Mathematics and… read more about Duke Math Meet 2019 »
Courtesy of Robin Smith – University Communications If you’ve ever visited the Louvre in Paris, you may have been too focused on snapping a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa to think about the nearest exit. But one Duke team knows how to get out fast when it matters most, thanks to a computer simulation they developed for the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling, an international contest in which thousands of student teams participate each year. Their results, published in the Journal of Undergraduate… read more about Leaving the Louvre - How to get out fast »
The department congratulates Didong Li, one of three recipients of the inaugural IMS Lawrence D. Brown PhD Student Award. Didong will present his work at an invited session at the World Congress/IMS Annual Meeting in Seoul (Aug 2020). Didong Li is co-advised by David Dunson and Sayan Mukherjee, Professors of Statistical Science and Mathematics at Duke University. Professor Lawrence Brown was a faculty member in the Cornell math department for many years before moving to the Wharton School at the… read more about Didong Li receives IMS award »