Aaron C. Pixton (born January 13, 1986) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. He works in

enumerative geometry In mathematics, enumerative geometry is the branch of algebraic geometry concerned with counting numbers of solutions to geometric questions, mainly by means of intersection theory. History The problem of Apollonius is one of the earliest examp ...

, and is also known for his

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

playing, where he is a

FIDE Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating an ...

Early life and education

Pixton was born in

Binghamton, New York Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

; his father, Dennis Pixton, is a retired professor of mathematics at

Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university with campuses in Binghamton, New York, Binghamton, Vestal, New York, Vestal, and Johnson City, New Yor ...

. He grew up in

Vestal, New York Vestal is a Town (New York), town within Broome County, New York, Broome County in the Southern Tier of New York (state), New York, United States, and lies between the Susquehanna River and the Pennsylvania border. As of the 2020 census, the popu ...

. While a student at Vestal Senior High School, he scored a perfect score on the

American Mathematics Competition The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) are the first of a series of competitions in secondary school mathematics that determine the United States team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The selection process takes place over th ...

three times from 2002 to 2004. He went on to the

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except i ...

in 2003 and 2004 to win consecutive gold medals. He received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in 2008 and a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

in 2013, both from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. While an undergraduate at

, Pixton was a three-time

Putnam Fellow The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regard ...

. For his research conducted as an undergraduate, he was awarded the 2009

Morgan Prize :''Distinguish from the De Morgan Medal awarded by the London Mathematical Society.'' The Morgan Prize (full name Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student) is an annual award given to an un ...

. In 2008, he received a

Churchill Scholarship The Churchill Scholarship is awarded by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States to graduates of the more than one hundred colleges and universities invited to participate in the Churchill Scholarship Program, for the pursuit of rese ...

to the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. Pixton received his Ph.D. in 2013 from Princeton under the supervision of

Rahul Pandharipande Rahul Pandharipande (born 1969) is a mathematician who is currently a professor of mathematics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH) working in algebraic geometry. His particular interests concern moduli spaces, enumerativ ...

; his dissertation was ''The tautological ring of the moduli space of curves''.

Career

Pixton was appointed as a Clay Research Fellow for a term of five years beginning in 2013. After two years as a postdoctoral researcher at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, he became an assistant professor of mathematics at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 2015. In 2017, he received a

Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

. In 2020, he moved to the University of Michigan as an assistant professor.

Chess

Pixton is also a former

child prodigy A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...

in chess. He was the 2001 U.S. Cadet Champion and the 2002 US Junior Chess Champion, and had a win against the former US Champion

Joel Benjamin Joel Lawrence Benjamin (born March 11, 1964) is an American chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). In 1998, he was voted "Grandmaster of the Year" by the U.S. Chess Federation. , his Elo rating was 2506, making him the No. ...

in 2003.

Selected publications

* * * *

References

External links

Home page at MIT
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pixton, Aaron 1986 births Living people 21st-century American mathematicians Sportspeople from Binghamton, New York Princeton University alumni Chess FIDE Masters American chess players Putnam Fellows International Mathematical Olympiad participants Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Mathematicians from New York (state) Sloan Research Fellows Algebraic geometers University of Michigan faculty