Ravi D. Vakil (born February 22, 1970) is a Canadian-American mathematician working in

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical ...

Education and career

Vakil attended high school at

Martingrove Collegiate Institute Martingrove Collegiate Institute (MCI), also referred to as Martingrove, is a semestered public secondary school in Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It opened in 1966 and is currently overseen by the Toronto District School Board. Academics ...

in Etobicoke, Ontario, where he won several mathematical contests and olympiads. After earning a BSc and MSc from the University of Toronto in 1992, he completed a PhD in mathematics at Harvard University in 1997 under Joe Harris. He has since been an instructor at both Princeton University and MIT. Since the fall of 2001, he has taught at

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 ...

, becoming a full professor in 2007.

Contributions

Vakil is an algebraic geometer and his research work spans over enumerative geometry, topology, Gromov–Witten theory, and classical algebraic geometry. He has solved several old problems in Schubert calculus. Among other results, he proved that all Schubert problems are enumerative over the real numbers, a result that resolves an issue mathematicians have worked on for at least two decades.

Awards and honors

Vakil has received many awards, including an

NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party *National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political gr ...

CAREER Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, an American Mathematical Society Centennial Fellowship, a G. de B. Robinson prize for the best paper published (2000) in the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and the

Canadian Mathematical Bulletin The ''Canadian Mathematical Bulletin'' (french: Bulletin Canadien de Mathématiques) is a mathematics journal, established in 1958 and published quarterly by the Canadian Mathematical Society. The current editors-in-chief of the journal are Antoni ...

, and the André-Aisenstadt Prize from the

Centre de Recherches Mathématiques The Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) is the first mathematical research institute in Canada, located at the Université de Montréal. The CRM has ten research laboratories, one in each of: mathematical analysis, number theory and symbol ...

at the Université de Montréal (2005), and the

Chauvenet Prize The Chauvenet Prize is the highest award for mathematical expository writing. It consists of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate, and is awarded yearly by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of an outstanding expository article ...

(2014).. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Mathematics contests

He was a member of the Canadian team in three

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 ...

s, winning silver, gold (perfect score), and gold in 1986, 1987, and 1988 respectively. He was also the fourth person to be a four-time Putnam Fellow in the history of the contest. Also, he has been the coordinator of weekly Putnam preparation seminars at Stanford.

References

External links

Ravi Vakil's Home Page
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vakil, Ravi 1970 births University of Toronto alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Stanford University faculty Algebraic geometers 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Canadian mathematicians People from Etobicoke Putnam Fellows Living people Canadian people of Indian descent Fellows of the American Mathematical Society International Mathematical Olympiad participants