Kaisa Sofia Matomäki (born April 30, 1985) is a Finnish

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

specializing in

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

. Since April 2023, she is a full professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics,

University of Turku The University of Turku (, shortened ''UTU'') is a multidisciplinary public university with eight faculties located in the city of Turku in southwestern Finland. The university also has campuses in Rauma and Pori and research stations in Kevo ...

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. Her research includes results on the distribution of

multiplicative function In number theory, a multiplicative function is an arithmetic function f of a positive integer n with the property that f(1)=1 and f(ab) = f(a)f(b) whenever a and b are coprime. An arithmetic function is said to be completely multiplicative (o ...

s over short intervals of numbers; for instance, she showed that the values of the

Möbius function The Möbius function \mu(n) is a multiplicative function in number theory introduced by the German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius (also transliterated ''Moebius'') in 1832. It is ubiquitous in elementary and analytic number theory and m ...

are evenly divided between +1 and −1 over short intervals. These results, in turn, were among the tools used by

Terence Tao Terence Chi-Shen Tao (; born 17 July 1975) is an Australian-American mathematician, Fields medalist, and professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he holds the James and Carol Collins Chair in the Co ...

to prove the

Erdős discrepancy problem In mathematics, a sign sequence, or ±1–sequence or bipolar sequence, is a sequence of numbers, each of which is either 1 or −1. One example is the sequence (1, −1, 1, −1, ...). Such sequences are commonly studied in discrepancy theo ...

Awards and honors

Kaisa Matomäki, along with

Maksym Radziwill Maksym Radziwill (born 24 February 1988) is a Polish-Canadian mathematician specializing in number theory. He is currently a professor of mathematics at the Northwestern University. Life He was born in Moscow in 1988. His family moved to Pola ...

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, was awarded the

SASTRA Ramanujan Prize The SASTRA Ramanujan Prize is an annual prize awarded to outstanding contributions in mathematics. It was incorporated and is awarded by the Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology & Research Academy (SASTRA) in Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu. The awa ...

for 2016. The Prize was established in 2005 and is awarded annually for outstanding contributions by young mathematicians to areas influenced by

Srinivasa Ramanujan Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar (22 December 188726 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician. Often regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial con ...

. The citation for the 2016 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize is as follows: "Kaisa Matomäki and Maksym Radziwill are jointly awarded the 2016 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize for their deep and far reaching contributions to several important problems in diverse areas of number theory and especially for their spectacular collaboration which is revolutionizing the subject. The prize recognizes that in making significant improvements over the works of earlier stalwarts on long standing problems, they have introduced a number of innovative techniques. The prize especially recognizes their collaboration starting with their 2015 joint paper in Geometric and Functional Analysis which led to their 2016 paper in the Annals of Mathematics in which they obtain amazing results on multiplicative functions in short intervals, and in particular a stunning result on the parity of the Liouville lambda function on almost all short intervals - a paper that is expected to change the subject of multiplicative functions in a major way. The prize notes also the very recent joint paper of Matomäki, Radziwill and Tao announcing a significant advance in the case ''k'' = 3 towards a conjecture of Chowla on the values of the lambda function on sets of ''k'' consecutive integers. Finally the prize notes, that Matomäki and Radziwill, through their impressive array of deep results and the powerful new techniques they have introduced, will strongly influence the development of

analytic number theory In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837 introduction of Dir ...

in the future." With Radziwill, she is one of five winners of the 2019 New Horizons Prize for Early-Career Achievement in Mathematics, associated with the

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics is an annual award of the Breakthrough Prize series announced in 2013. It is funded by Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg and others. The annual award comes with a cash gift of $3 million. The Breakthrough Prize ...

. She is one of the 2020 winners of the

EMS Prize The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The curren ...

. She was awarded the 2021 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize by the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

"for her work (much of it joint with Maksym Radziwiłł) opening up the field of multiplicative functions in short intervals in a completely unexpected and very fruitful way, and in particular in their breakthrough paper, 'Multiplicative Functions in Short Intervals' (

Annals of Mathematics The ''Annals of Mathematics'' is a mathematical journal published every two months by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. History The journal was established as ''The Analyst'' in 1874 and with Joel E. Hendricks as t ...

183 2016, 1015–1056)." For 2023 she received the

Cole Prize The Frank Nelson Cole Prize, or Cole Prize for short, is one of twenty-two prizes awarded to mathematicians by the American Mathematical Society, one for an outstanding contribution to algebra, and the other for an outstanding contribution to numbe ...

in Number Theory of the AMS. She was elected to the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

in 2021.

Education and career

Kaisa Matomäki was born in

Nakkila Nakkila () is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Satakunta region, southeast of Pori. The Kokemäki River flows along the center of Nakkila. The municipality has a population of () an ...

, Finland, on 30 April 1985. She attended high school in

Valkeakoski Valkeakoski (; lit. "white rapids") is a town and municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. It is located south of Tampere, north of Hämeenlinna and north of Helsinki in the Pirkanmaa regions of Finland, region. The municipality has ...

, Finland and won the First Prize in the national mathematics competition for Finnish high school students. She did her Masters at the University of Turku and received the Ernst Lindelof Award for the best Masters Thesis in mathematics in Finland in 2005. After completing her PhD at the Royal Holloway College of the University of London in 2009 under the direction of Professor Glyn Harman, she returned to Turku where she worked as an associate professor and as Academy Research Fellow. She was made a full professor in April 2023.

Personal life

Kaisa Matomäki is married to Pekka Matomäki, who is also a

specializing in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

. They have three children. Currently they live in

Lieto Lieto (; ) is a municipalities of Finland, city and municipality of Finland. It is located in the provinces of Finland, province of Western Finland and is part of the Southwest Finland regions of Finland, region. The municipality has a populatio ...

, close to Turku.

References

External links

Homepage of Kaisa Matomäki
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Matomaki, Kaisa Sofia Living people 1985 births Alumni of Royal Holloway, University of London People from Nakkila Number theorists Recipients of the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize Finnish mathematicians Finnish women mathematicians International Mathematical Olympiad participants Members of Academia Europaea University of Turku alumni