Susan Mary Rees, FRS (born 31 July 1953) is a British

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 ...

and an emeritus professor of mathematics at the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

since 2018, specialising in research in

complex dynamical system Complex dynamics is the study of dynamical systems defined by iteration of functions on complex number spaces. Complex analytic dynamics is the study of the dynamics of specifically analytic functions. Techniques *General **Montel's theorem **Po ...

Career

Rees was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

. After obtaining her BA in 1974 and MSc in 1975 at St Hugh's College, Oxford, she did research in mathematics under the direction of Bill Parry at the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (2020� ...

, obtaining a PhD in 1978. Her first postdoctoral position was 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 schola ...

from 1978 to 1979. Later she worked at Institut des hautes études scientifiques and the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

. Following this she worked at the

until her retirement. She became professor of mathematics in 2002 and retired in 2018, becoming an emeritus professor. She was awarded a

Whitehead Prize The Whitehead Prize is awarded yearly by the London Mathematical Society to multiple mathematicians working in the United Kingdom who are at an early stage of their career. The prize is named in memory of homotopy theory pioneer J. H. C. Whiteh ...

of the London Mathematical Society in 1988. The citation notes that, in particular,

Her most spectacular theorem has been to show that in the space of
rational map In mathematics, in particular the subfield of algebraic geometry, a rational map or rational mapping is a kind of partial function between algebraic varieties. This article uses the convention that varieties are irreducible. Definition Formal d ...
s of the
Riemann sphere In mathematics, the Riemann sphere, named after Bernhard Riemann, is a model of the extended complex plane: the complex plane plus one point at infinity. This extended plane represents the extended complex numbers, that is, the complex numbers ...
of degree ''d'' ≥ 2 those maps that are ergodic with respect to Lebesgue measure and leave invariant an
absolutely continuous In calculus, absolute continuity is a smoothness property of functions that is stronger than continuity and uniform continuity. The notion of absolute continuity allows one to obtain generalizations of the relationship between the two central ope ...
probability measure form a set of positive measure.

She also spoke at the ICM at

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

in 1990. In recent years, much of Rees' work has focused on the dynamics of quadratic rational maps; i.e. rational maps of the Riemann sphere of degree two, including an extensive monograph. In 2004, she also presented an alternative proof of the Ending Laminations Conjecture of Thurston, which had been proved by Brock,

Canary Canary originally referred to the island of Gran Canaria on the west coast of Africa, and the group of surrounding islands (the Canary Islands). It may also refer to: Animals Birds * Canaries, birds in the genera ''Serinus'' and ''Crithagra'' i ...

and Minsky shortly before.The classification of Kleinian surface groups, II: The Ending Lamination Conjecture
Preprint, 2004

FRS

She was elected to a

Fellowship A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 2002.

Family

Her father

David Rees David or Dai Rees may refer to: Entertainment * David Rees (author) (1936–1993), British children's author * Dave Rees (born 1969), American drummer for SNFU and Wheat Chiefs * David Rees (cartoonist) (born 1972), American cartoonist and televis ...

was also a distinguished mathematician, who worked on

Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology * Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup * Enigma machine, a family ...

Hut 6 Hut 6 was a wartime section of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, Britain, tasked with the solution of German Army and Air Force Enigma machine cyphers. Hut 8, by contrast, attacked Naval Enigma. ...

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years followin ...

. Her sister Sarah Rees is also a mathematician.

Works

* Mary Rees (2010) "Multiple equivalent matings with the aeroplane polynomial". ''Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems'', pp. 20 * Mary Rees (2008) "William Parry FRS 1934–2006". ''Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society'', 54, pp. 229–243 * Mary Rees (2004) "Teichmuller distance is not $C^$". ''Proc London Math'', 88, pp. 114–134 * Mary Rees (2003) "Views of Parameter Space: Topographer and Resident". '' Asterisque'', 288, pp. 1–418 * Mary Rees (2002) "Teichmuller distance for analytically finite surfaces is $C^$." ''Proc. London Math. Soc''. 85 (2002) 686 – 716.,85, pp. 686–716

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rees, Mary Female Fellows of the Royal Society Living people 1953 births Whitehead Prize winners 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians British women mathematicians People from Cambridge Academics of the University of Liverpool Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Warwick Fellows of the Royal Society Dynamical systems theorists 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians