Melanie Wood

Melanie Wood

Melanie Wood in 2007
Photo from Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (MFO)
Born 1981 (age 3536)
Indianapolis, Indiana
Nationality American
Fields Mathematics
Institutions Stanford University
University of Wisconsin
Alma mater Duke University
Princeton University
Doctoral advisor Manjul Bhargava
Notable awards

Morgan Prize (2004)
AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory (2017)

NSF Career Award (2017)

Melanie Matchett Wood (born 1981[1]) is an American mathematician who became the first female American to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her Ph.D. in 2009 at Princeton University (under Manjul Bhargava) and is currently a full Professor at the University of Wisconsin, after spending 2 years as Szegö Assistant Professor at Stanford University.

Wood was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Sherry Eggers and Archie Wood, both middle school teachers. Her father died of cancer when Wood was six weeks old.[2]

While a high school student at Park Tudor School in Indianapolis, Wood (then aged 16) became the first, and until 2004 the only female American to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team, receiving silver medals in the 1998 and 1999 International Mathematical Olympiad.[3] Wood was also a cheerleader and student newspaper editor at her school.[4]

In 2003, Wood graduated from Duke University where she won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, Fulbright fellowship, and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship, in addition to becoming the first American woman and second woman overall to be named a Putnam Fellow in 2002.[5][6][7] During the 2003–2004 year she studied at Cambridge University. She was also named the Deputy Leader of the U.S. team that finished second overall at the 2005 International Mathematical Olympiad.

In 2004, she won the Morgan Prize for work in two topics, Belyi-extending maps and P-orderings, making her the first woman to win this award.[3][7]

In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[8]

In 2017 she received an NSF Career Award and the AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory from the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Selected publications

References

  1. "AWM Essay Contest: Leena Shah". Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  2. Olson, Steven (2005). Count Down: Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's Toughest Math Competition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 18. ISBN 0-618-56212-5.
  3. 1 2 "Melanie Wood Interview". Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  4. Rimer, Sara (2008-10-10). "Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  5. "Duke Magazine-Where Are They Now?-January/February 2010". Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-07-07. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
  7. 1 2 http://www.ams.org/notices/200404/comm-morgan.pdf
  8. List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-09-01.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.