Autumn Kent is an American mathematician specializing in

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

and

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

. She is a professor of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and Vilas Associate at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

. She is a

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

woman and a promoter of trans rights.

Education

Kent received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 1999. Originally, she had planned to become a high-school English teacher, but she switched to mathematics, majoring in it and in literature. She earned her Ph.D. under the advising of Cameron McAllan Gordon at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 2006; her dissertation was entitled ''Geometry and Algebra of Hyperbolic 3-manifolds''. After a four-year position as the Tamarkin Assistant Professor of Mathematics at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, she joined the faculty of University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2010. She became associate professor in 2016, and a full professor in 2020.

Career

Kent has published over 20 papers in various journals, mostly regarding low dimensional topology and

knot theory In the mathematical field of topology, knot theory is the study of knot (mathematics), mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the ends are ...

. Many of these were published under her former name, or deadname, before she came out as transgender. Kent served on the Policy and Advocacy Committee for the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

from Feb 2019-Jan 2022. In addition, she served on the

Panel Discussion Promoting Inclusion in

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

at the 2019

Joint Mathematics Meeting The Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) is a mathematics conference hosted annually in early January by the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Frequently, several other national mathematics organizations also participate. The meeting is the largest ...

. With Harrison Bray, she organized the LG&TBQ+ conference 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 ...

to foster collaboration between

LGBTQ+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

mathematicians working in

, and

dynamical systems In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a p ...

with funding from Kent's

NSF Career Award The National Science Foundation CAREER awards, presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these endeavors i ...

. She gave the Spectra Lavender Lecture at the 2022 Joint Mathematics Meeting.

Recognition

In 1999, Kent won the Frank Gerth Dissertation Award. In 2014, she was awarded an

to study moduli of

Riemann surface In mathematics, particularly in complex analysis, a Riemann surface is a connected one-dimensional complex manifold. These surfaces were first studied by and are named after Bernhard Riemann. Riemann surfaces can be thought of as deformed vers ...

s. In 2015 and 2016, she was a von Neumann Fellow at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

. She was named as a Vilas Associate at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

for 2018 and 2019. In 2019, she received a Simons Fellowship. She was elected as a Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

in the 2024 class of fellows.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kent, Autumn American women mathematicians American LGBT scientists American transgender women Living people Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars American topologists Transgender rights activists University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts alumni University of North Carolina at Asheville alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Transgender scientists LGBT mathematicians 21st-century American LGBT people Transgender history in the United States Fellows of the American Mathematical Society