Lauren K. Williams

Lauren K. Williams

Fellow: Awarded 2022
Field of Study: Mathematics

Competition: US & Canada

Lauren Williams received her BA in mathematics from Harvard in 2000; after a year in Cambridge doing Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, she obtained her PhD from MIT in 2005 under the supervision of Richard Stanley. After postdoctoral positions at UC Berkeley and Harvard, she joined the faculty at UC Berkeley in 2009, obtaining tenure in 2013. In 2018 she returned to Harvard, where she is presently the Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics and the Sally Starling Seaver Professor at Radcliffe.

Williams’ research interests include algebraic combinatorics, including cluster algebras, total positivity, and tropical geometry. She is particularly interested in the interactions of combinatorics with physics; current topics of interest include the asymmetric simple exclusion process (a model from statistical physics) and the amplituhedron (which is related to scattering amplitudes).

Williams is the recipient of a Sloan fellowship, an NSF CAREER award, the AWM-Microsoft Research prize, the Rose Hills Innovator award, a Simons Fellowship, a Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching award at Berkeley, and the 2018 Hardy Lectureship. She is an Honorary member of the London Mathematical Society, and is an invited speaker at the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians.

Photo Credit: Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

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