Lillian Pierce

Lillian Pierce received a BA in Mathematics and graduated as valedictorian of Princeton University in 2002. She earned an MSc by Research at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004, and a PhD from Princeton in 2009. After postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study and University of Oxford and a year as a Bonn Junior Fellow, Pierce took a faculty position at Duke University, where she is presently the Nicholas J. and Theresa M. Leonardy Professor of Mathematics. Pierce’s research combines techniques of analytic number theory and harmonic analysis, with particular interests in Diophantine equations, exponential and character sums, class groups, oscillatory integrals, and singular integrals. Pierce has recently founded the journal Essential Number Theory, which aims to deepen the impact of important ideas by encouraging authors to write clear, useful expositions. Pierce’s work has been recognized by a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a Simons Fellowship, a Joan and Joseph Birman Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, a von Neumann Fellowship, and a Marie Curie Fellowship. She was an invited speaker, representing number theory and analysis, at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2022.