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Math Receives Gift for Berger-Leighton Endowed Professorship

November 22, 2022 By

Bonnie Berger

The entire Mathematics Department at Brandeis feels grateful and deeply honored by the recent gift by Bonnie Berger ’83, a former Brandeis trustee and the Simons Professor of Mathematics at MIT, and her husband, Dr. Tom Leighton, Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT and CEO and cofounder of Akamai Technologies. This gift is very timely for the Mathematics department, as they are experiencing a generational transition, and look to attract a new generation of scholars that will help shape the direction and reputation of the department for the next decades.

The Brandeis Mathematics Department has an illustrious history, and many prominent mathematicians have flourished at Brandeis. The Berger-Leighton Endowed Professorship will be a crucial tool to renew this tradition of excellence. They will aim at hiring new faculty of the highest caliber, which will serve as anchors for future research groups within the department and beyond.

Brandeis prides itself in having a faculty body that both radiates internationally and takes good care of its students internally. The Mathematics department is a prime example of this aspiration, and they are excited that the Berger-Leighton Endowed Professorship will help them achieve this vision. The first recipient of the Endowed Professorship will be hired this year. The department has an abundance of exceptional candidates. They are looking forward to welcoming a new colleague soon, and helping them bloom and become an influential mathematician.

Additional information: Brandeis Alumni, Friends and Families

Filed Under: awards, division of science, division of science, labs, math, Mathematics Tagged With: , ,

Anish Ghosh receives the 2021 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize

December 16, 2021 By

Anish Ghosh has received the 2021 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Mathematical Sciences. The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize is India’s highest science award within the country. While at Brandeis, Anish Ghosh was the student of Dmitry Kleinbock, Professor of Mathematics. He is currently a faculty member at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai where he specializes in Ergodic Theory and Number Theory.

Kleinbock wrote the following about his former student:

“It was a great pleasure to find out that Anish Ghosh, my former student here at Brandeis, has received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize. Anish is a talented mathematician working in the field of ergodic theory on homogeneous spaces. Interest in this field rose significantly during the late 1980s and early 1990s after the seminal achievements of Marina Ratner and Anish’s mathematical grandfather Gregory Margulis, whose work, in particular the proof of the Oppenheim Conjecture, has since served as a basis for numerous links between dynamics and number theory.”

“Anish has been exploring connections between the two fields throughout his mathematical career. Since his graduation in 2006 he has authored more than 40 papers, many published in top-level journals, and has become one of a few people who are shaping the subject of ergodic theory and its arithmetical applications. Among his notable achievements I can mention the work on distribution of dense lattice orbits in homogeneous spaces, on intrinsic Diophantine approximation, on applications of equidistribution to counting lattice points and – most recently – an approach to quantitative Oppenheim-type problems involving Rogers’ moment formulas.”

“Anish has also been a great mentor, who as of now has produced at least 8 PhD students and collaborated with them extensively on various problems. He has lectured extensively on the subject of connections of dynamics and number theory and edited several collections of papers. To summarize, the Bhatnagar Prize is well deserved, and I am positive that the mathematical talent of Anish Ghosh will continue to flourish.”

Filed Under: awards, division of science, division of science, labs, Mathematics Tagged With: , , ,

Chemistry alum receives the Volvo Environmental Prize 2021

November 3, 2021 By

Photo: Yale School of Public Health

Paul Anastas, MA’87, PhD’90, aka the “Father of Green Chemistry,” has received the Volvo Environmental Prize for 2021. This award is given annually to those who have made “outstanding innovations or scientific discoveries, which in broad terms fall within the environmental field.” In Volvo’s press release, the prize jury stated that the research of Paul Anastas “is revolutionizing the chemical industry, a key contribution to meeting the sustainability challenge”.

Over the course of his career, Anastas has worked as a staff chemist at the Environmental Protection Agency, served as an advisor in the Obama White House and co-authored the book 12 Principles of Green Chemistry This book is used by high school, college and graduate students around the world. He is currently the director of Yale University’s Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering.

He received the 2012 Alumni Achievement Award from Brandeis.

Anastas did his graduate work in synthetic organic chemistry in the lab of the late Robert Stevenson, Professor Emeritus. He earned his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts Boston and his M.A. and Ph.D. in chemistry from Brandeis University.

Filed Under: awards, chemistry, labs Tagged With: , ,

Drew Weissman ’81, MA ’81 Receives the Lasker Award

October 8, 2021 By

Drew WeissmanKatalin Karikó and Drew Weissman ’81, MA ’81 have received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. Weissman is a professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Karikó is a senior vice president at BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals. The Lasker award is in recognition of their research into messenger RNA and the resulting therapeutic technology. It was their work that was so crucial in the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines. It should be noted that many winners of the Lasker award go on to receive the Nobel Prize.

Weissman and Kariko also received the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research award earlier this year.

The Washington Post profiled Weissman and his work in a recent article, “A scientific hunch. Then silence. Until the world needed a lifesaving vaccine.”

View Lasker acceptance remarks from Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman.

 

 

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, division of science, General, labs Tagged With: , ,

Brandeis Alumnus Receives Breakthrough Prize

October 8, 2021 By

Drew WeissmanBrandeis alumnus, Drew Weissman, ’81, MA ’81, P’15 along with Katalin Karikó have been awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.  Weissman and Karikó received the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research from Brandeis earlier this year.

While the Breakthrough Prize is considered the world’s largest science prize at $3 million, it is one of the many awards that Weissman and Kariko have been receiving as a result of their decades of research into mRNA therapies. It is this research that has led to the innovative COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

After earning his BA and MA degrees from Brandeis, Weissman went on to receive his PhD in Immunology from Boston University in 1987. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health under Anthony Fauci. He is now a professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Additional information:

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, division of science, General, labs Tagged With: , , ,

Alum, Past Postdoc Receive Awards from Breakthrough Prize Foundation

September 25, 2020 By
Netta Engelhardt

Netta Engelhardt. photo: MIT

Lisa Piccirillo

Lisa Piccirillo. photo: Quanta Magazine.

Lisa Piccirillo, a recent Brandeis postdoc and Netta Engelhardt, a Brandeis undergraduate alumni have received two awards from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. While the Breakthrough Prizes are intended to help scientific leaders gain financial freedom, the New Horizons award and the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize focus on young scientists early in their careers.

The Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize is awarded to early-career women mathematicians. Lisa Piccirillo received this prize for her work in resolving the Conway Knot problem. Piccirillo was a postdoc working with Daniel Ruberman, Professor of Mathematics, from 2019 until her recent appointment as Assistant Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Netta Engelhardt, is part of a group that received the 2021 New Horizons in Physics Prize. Netta and three other scientists were awarded for their research in calculating the quantum information content of a black hole and its radiation. Engelhardt is currently an Assistant Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was a 2011 graduate who majored in Physics. She received a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship prior to graduating from Brandeis.

 

Filed Under: awards, labs, Mathematics, Physics Tagged With: , , , ,

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