# Category Archives: Mathematicians

## Otto Neugebauer, redux

Last May, I wrote a piece about Otto Neugebauer and the founding of Mathematical Reviews.  I find Neugebauer’s story compelling.  A revised version of that blog post was published in the October 2020 issue of the Notices of the American … Continue reading

## Martin Hairer wins Breakthrough Prize

Martin Hairer has won the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics.  The announcement is here.  The official citation is: For transformative contributions to the theory of stochastic analysis, particularly the theory of regularity structures in stochastic partial differential equations.  His long … Continue reading

## Harvard hires three new mathematics professors

Harvard has hired three new professors in the Mathematics Department:  Laura DeMarco, Mihnea Popa, and Melanie Matchett Wood.  Their appointments began in July.  There are now three women who are tenured, full professors in the department.  Lauren Williams joined the … Continue reading

## Roger Penrose on Numberphile

UPDATE [6 October 2020]:  Roger Penrose is one of the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics.  Congratulations! Numberphile has posted an audio interview with Roger Penrose on their YouTube channel Numberphile2.  You can also access it as … Continue reading

## Happy 121st Birthday, Otto Neugebauer

Today is Otto Neugebauer’s birthday (May 26, 1899 — February 19, 1990). Normally, Mathematical Reviews would have a gathering in our kitchen with a cake. And I would remind people that Neugebauer left Europe, eventually ending up in Providence, Rhode … Continue reading

## John Horton Conway

John Horton Conway died on April 11 of COVID-19. He was 82 years old. In the midst of social distancing measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic, a common refrain is “life goes on”.  But sometimes it doesn’t. Conway was an … Continue reading

## Emily Riehl

Emily Riehl, a mathematician at Johns Hopkins University, won a huge prize from the university recently: the $250,000 President’s Frontier Award. Riehl works in category theory related to homotopy theory, such as$(\infty,1)\$-categories.  Her work has roots in earlier work … Continue reading

## Louis Nirenberg

Louis Nirenberg died January 26, 2020 at the age of 94.  He made tremendous contributions to the field of partial differential equations and global analysis.