Sophie Morel (born 1979) is a French

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 ...

, specializing in

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

. She is a

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

directrice de recherches in mathematics at

École normale supérieure de Lyon The École normale supérieure de Lyon (also known as ENS de Lyon, ENSL or Normale Sup' Lyon) is a French grande école located in the city of Lyon. It is one of the four prestigious écoles normales supérieures in France. The school is ...

. In 2012 she received one of the ten prizes of the European Mathematical Society.

Biography

In a 2011 interview, Morel credited a math magazine bought while in 9th grade as well as summer camps for developing her interest in mathematics and in a 2012 interview she mentioned being a keen distance runner. She studied in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

, graduating in 1999. In 2005 she finished her Ph.D. at the University of Paris-Sud, under the supervision of

Gérard Laumon Gérard Laumon (; born 1952) is a French mathematician, best known for his results in number theory, for which he was awarded the Clay Research Award. Life and work Laumon studied at the École Normale Supérieure and Paris-Sud 11 University, Or ...

. Her thesis made progress on the Langlands program. After her Ph.D., she was a

Clay Research Fellow The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) is a private, non-profit foundation dedicated to increasing and disseminating mathematical knowledge. Formerly based in Peterborough, New Hampshire, the corporate address is now in Denver, Colorado. CMI's scie ...

between 2005 and 2011. In December 2009 she was appointed as a professor of mathematics 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 ...

, becoming the first woman in mathematics to be tenured there. From 2012 to 2020, she was a professor of mathematics in

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 ...

, where she was also the Henry Burchard Fine Professor in 2015. Morel moved to École Normale supérieure de Lyon as an

directrice de recherches in mathematics in 2020.

Recognition

She gave an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010, in the "Number Theory" section. In 2012 she received one of the prestigious European Mathematical Society Prize for young researchers, and in May 2013 she was announced as the winner of the inaugural 2014 AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory.

Selected publications

* * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morel, Sophie 20th-century French mathematicians 21st-century French mathematicians Harvard University Department of Mathematics faculty Harvard University faculty Princeton University faculty 1979 births Living people Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni Number theorists French women mathematicians 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century French women 21st-century French women