Sherry Gong is an American mathematician specializing in

low-dimensional topology In mathematics, low-dimensional topology is the branch of topology that studies manifolds, or more generally topological spaces, of four or fewer dimensions. Representative topics are the structure theory of 3-manifolds and 4-manifolds, knot th ...

and known as one of the most successful female competitors at 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 ...

. She is an assistant professor at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

Early life and education

Gong was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to two mathematicians, Guihua Gong and Liangqing Li, both later affiliated with the

University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...

. She grew up in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

, and

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. She received an AB in mathematics from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, and a PhD in mathematics from

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 mo ...

in 2018. Her dissertation, ''Results on Spectral Sequences for Monopole and Singular Instanton Floer Homologies'', was supervised by

Tomasz Mrowka Tomasz Mrowka (born September 8, 1961) is an American mathematician specializing in differential geometry and gauge theory. He is the Singer Professor of Mathematics and former head of the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institu ...

Mathematics competitions

Gong is the second U.S. woman (after

Alison Miller Alison Beth Miller is an American mathematician who was the first American female gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad. She also holds the distinction of placing in the top 16 of the Putnam Competition four times, the last th ...

won in 2004) to win a gold medal in the

, which Gong won in 2007, earning a tie for seventh place out of 536 participants (she scored a 32). She was the only woman on the U.S. team that year, and also one of only three women ever to make the U.S. team. She also tied for first place in the China Mathematical Olympiad for Girls in 2007. Gong participated in IMO five times, winning HM in 2002, bronze in 2003, silver in 2004 and 2005 and gold in 2007. In 2005 she was named the 2005 Clay Olympiad Scholar. In 2006 she earned a silver medal at the 2006 International Physics Olympiad. She was a winner (top twelve) at the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad in 2005, 2006, and 2007, including placing 2nd in 2007. In 2010 Gong helped coach the U.S. team that competed in the China Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad; five team members won gold medals. In 2011 she won the

Alice T. Schafer Alice Turner Schafer (June 18, 1915 – September 27, 2009) was an American mathematician. She was one of the founding members of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 1971.

Career

After completing her doctorate, Gong did postdoctoral research as a Hedrick Assistant Adjunct Professor at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, and as a

Maryam Mirzakhani Maryam Mirzakhani ( fa, مریم میرزاخانی, ; 12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ...

Postdoctoral Fellow 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 ...

. She is currently an assistant professor of mathematics at

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gong, Sherry Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Harvard College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology people International Mathematical Olympiad participants American people of Chinese descent 21st-century women mathematicians 21st-century American women