Lauren Williams awarded MacArthur ‘genius grant’ — Harvard Gazette

Lauren Williams is a theoretical mathematician and lately she felt caught in her analysis, a recurring frustration for a scholar who wrestles with tough conceptual issues.

Then, as Williams labored quietly in her house workplace, she was jolted by an surprising revelation: The MacArthur Foundation phoned to tell Williams that she had gained a celebrated “genius grant” — a “no-strings-attached” fellowship that gives recipients $800,000 over 5 years.

“I was completely shocked,” recalled Williams, Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics. “I was just sort of trying to verify for myself that I was awake, and this was real.”

Williams was one in every of 22 fellows announced Wednesday. The MacArthur Foundation credited Williams for “elucidating unexpected connections” between her area of algebraic combinatorics and different areas in math and physics.

The basis mentioned: “With a curiosity-driven approach to research and willingness to collaborate across disciplines, Williams is expanding fundamental mathematical theory and building fruitful connections between mathematics and other scientific fields.”

Williams focuses on algebra and combinatorics and the way they are often utilized to issues in math and physics. Simply put, combinatorics is the examine of discrete, finite issues that may be counted versus issues which can be steady — assume the continual floor of the ocean vs. the waves.

Much of her work includes the “positive Grassmannian,” a geometrical form whose factors characterize less complicated geometric objects.

Other students have found that her theoretical work applies to a various array of phenomena comparable to shallow water waves, tsunamis, collisions of basic particles, protein synthesis, and the circulate of visitors on one-way streets.

Williams stays each fascinated and perplexed about why the constructive Grassmannian retains popping up in such disparate domains. “It’s one of the biggest mysteries that I’ve encountered,” she mentioned.

Williams attracts inspiration from a citation from British mathematician G.H. Hardy: “The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: There is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.”

“If you ask a question and the answer is not beautiful, that means you asked the wrong question.”

At an aesthetic degree, Williams sees many parallels between her work in pure math and the humanities: all remedy puzzles throughout the guidelines of the medium; all contain patterns, magnificence, and concord.

“If you ask a question and the answer is not beautiful, that means you asked the wrong question,” she mentioned.

Raised within the suburbs of Los Angeles, Williams grew up as a voracious reader, aspiring author, and violinist. In fourth grade, she found she was good at math when she gained her faculty district competitors, and she or he continued pursuing her curiosity in summer time packages and math competitions.

As a Harvard undergraduate, she majored in arithmetic at a time when there have been no ladies on the division college.

After incomes her Ph.D. at MIT, she returned to Harvard on a Benjamin Peirce postdoctoral fellowship. She spent 9 years on the college on the University of California at Berkeley earlier than returning to Harvard in 2018 as solely the second feminine tenured professor within the historical past of the Math Department.

With the MacArthur grant turning a highlight on her nook of academia, Williams hopes to encourage different younger ladies who aspire to careers in arithmetic.

“When I was a student, I worried quite a lot about whether I could get an academic job and whether a career in academia was compatible with having children,” mentioned Williams, now a mom of two. “To the students who are interested in a career in math academia but are worried about the same issues, I would very much encourage them to go for it.”

Her profession has been a balancing act — generally fairly actually. As a younger professor, Williams had an toddler who was a fitful sleeper and night time after night time, she and her husband took turns rocking the kid to sleep by bobbing on a yoga ball.

“If you’re holding a baby in a dark room, gently bouncing, there’s nothing you can do except think,” mentioned Williams. “One night, I started thinking about a question and that actually led to my next paper.”

Today Williams is one in every of three ladies on the Harvard math college. This small cohort is racking up a formidable report with MacArthur Fellowships: Melanie Matchett Wood was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2022.

(Also amongst this 12 months’s MacArthur cohort was Hahrie Han ’97, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University who was acknowledged for her analysis into how folks interact in civil and political affairs.)

For Williams, the award comes at an opportune second. She had three federal analysis grants terminated in May — together with one for a convention scheduled for the next month, forcing her and her colleagues to scramble to reorganize the occasion.

“This award really couldn’t come at a better time, personally,” she mentioned.

At a bigger degree, the popularity is about multiple scholar. Like her beloved constructive Grassmannian, her achievement displays these of many others.

“I’m shocked and honored, but also just incredibly grateful to the dozens, if not hundreds, of amazing teachers, mentors, collaborators, friends, and family members who have supported me,” mentioned Williams. “The biggest overwhelming reaction for me is really just gratitude.”