Math in the News
Mathematician Selected as 2012 MacArthur Fellow
Maria Chudnovsky was named a 2012 MacArthur Fellow for her work on classifications and properties of graphs.
Chudnovsky is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at Columbia University with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Mathematics. She received her B.A. (1996) and M.Sc. (1999) degrees from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and an M.A. (2002) and a Ph.D. (2003) from Princeton University. She was affiliated with Princeton University (2003–2006) and a research fellow at the Clay Mathematics Institute (2003–2008) prior to joining the faculty of Columbia.
According to her MacArthur Foundation profile:
In an early breakthrough, Chudnovsky and colleagues proved a conjecture offered in the early 1960s, known as the “Strong Perfect Graph Theorem,” that identifies specific criteria required for a graph to fall into the “perfect” class. Any perfect graph can be colored efficiently (i.e., no node is connected to another node of the same color), and graph coloring bears a direct relation to finding efficient solutions to problems such as allocating non-interfering radio frequencies in communication networks. Since this landmark accomplishment, Chudnovsky has continued to generate a series of important results in graph theory.
Recipients of MacArthur Fellowships are awarded $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years. In an interview for MacArthur, Chudnovsky said, “With the MacArthur Fellowship, I will be able to work exactly on the problems I want to work on, which is extremely important if you are trying to do something creative.”
Daniel Spielman, professor of applied mathematics and computer science at Yale University, was named a 2012 MacArthur Fellow for his work in theoretical computer science on abstract questions that affect society (related article).
Recent mathematicians who have been named fellows include L. Mahadevan (Class of 2009), and Terrence Tao (Class of 2006).