Lisa Sauermann (born 25 September 1992) is a mathematician from Germany known for her performance in 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 ...

, where in 2011 she had the single highest (and perfect) score. She won four gold medals (2008–2011) and one silver medal (2007) at the olympiad, representing Germany. Sauermann attended

Martin-Andersen-Nexö-Gymnasium Dresden The Martin-Andersen-Nexö-Gymnasium Dresden (MANOS) is a selective high school ( gymnasium) in Dresden, Germany, with a special focus on mathematics and sciences. It was formerly the school for radio mechanics in the GDR. It is named after the D ...

when she was in 12th grade. She won the Franz Ludwig Gehe Prize in 2011 and the gold medal in the age group III, the 11th–12th grade competition. As a result, she won a trip to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. To achieve this, she presented a new mathematical theorem with a proof in a work entitled "Forests with Hypergraphs". In 2011 she began studying mathematics at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

. She became a graduate student studying with

Jacob Fox Jacob Fox (born Jacob Licht in 1984) is an American mathematician. He is a professor at Stanford University. His research interests are in Hungarian-style combinatorics, particularly Ramsey theory, extremal graph theory, combinatorial number the ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

where she obtained her PhD in 2019, receiving two prizes for her dissertation. Currently she works as assistant professor at

MIT 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 m ...

where she lists her research interests as "

extremal In mathematics, particularly in calculus, a stationary point of a differentiable function of one variable is a point on the graph of the function where the function's derivative is zero. Informally, it is a point where the function "stops" in ...

and

probabilistic Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many appl ...

". In 2022, she was awarded a

Sloan 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. ...

. Her sister, Anne, two years her junior, was a successful participant in math and science Olympiads at the national level.

Selected publications

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauermann, Lisa 1992 births Living people 21st-century German mathematicians German women mathematicians Scientists from Dresden International Mathematical Olympiad participants University of Bonn alumni Stanford University alumni 21st-century women mathematicians 21st-century German women