2021 Waterman Award

美国国家科学基金会(NSF)提名哈佛大学数学教授梅勒妮·马切特·伍德为2021年艾伦·T·沃特曼奖获得者：以表彰其在数论、代数几何、拓扑学和概率论领域的基本贡献，包括在随机矩阵学科中建立深刻的结果，通过证明猜想和普遍相信的陈述而推动该领域的发展，偶尔还会反驳这些猜想和陈述。伍德博士关于随机矩阵、随机图和随机沙堆的一些被引用最多的工作，将在物理学和统计学中得到下游应用。伍德博士的工作重点之一是开发一种科恩-列斯特拉启发式的非阿贝尔类比，在这个类群中，类群被可变数域的非阿贝尔扩张的伽罗瓦群取代。伍德博士还对具有任意“奇怪”系数的二次型有了非凡的理解。伍德博士是她所在数学领域的世界领先者之一，总体上是她那一代人中的佼佼者。伍德在她的专业中发挥了领导作用，促进女孩和妇女更多地参与数学，例如通过她与高中课程的工作，并向外行受众传播数学的无处不在。16岁时，伍德成为美国国际奥数代表队的第一位女性成员，并率领第一支美国队参加国际高中生女子奥数竞赛。她接受了自己作为数学领袖的独特地位，以激励他人，成为下一代的榜样。伍德博士赢得了许多奖项和奖项，包括成为第一位因北美最优秀的本科生数学研究而获得摩根奖的女性，以及第一位被命名为普特南研究员的美国女性。她获得了AWM-微软代数和数论研究奖。此外，她还被任命为克莱数学研究所的发射研究员、美国数学学会的首任研究员、斯隆研究员和帕卡德科学与工程奖学金的获得者。伍德于2003年在杜克大学获得学士学位，并于2009年在普林斯顿大学获得博士学位。她在2009-2014年间担任AIM研究员，2009年被任命为克莱发射研究员，在斯坦福大学获得这些学位，并于2011年加入威斯康星大学担任助理教授。她于2019年移居加州大学伯克利分校担任教授，自2020年5月以来一直担任哈佛大学教授。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The National Science Foundation (NSF) named Melanie Matchett Wood, Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University, as the 2021 Alan T. Waterman Award recipient: For fundamental contributions at the interface of number theory, algebraic geometry, topology, and probability including establishing deep results in the subject of random matrices, advancing the field by proving, and occasionally disproving, conjectures and widely believed statements. Some of Dr. Wood’s most cited work, on random matrices, random graphs, and random sandpiles, will have downstream applications in both physics and statistics. One focus of Dr. Wood’s work has been to develop a nonabelian analogue of the Cohen-Lenstra heuristics, in which class groups are replaced by Galois groups of nonabelian extensions of a varying number field. Dr. Wood also developed a remarkable understanding of quadratic forms with arbitrarily "strange" coefficients. Dr. Wood is one of the world’s leaders in her field of mathematics and is at the top of her generation in mathematics overall.Dr. Wood has taken on a leadership role in her profession, promoting greater participation by girls and women in mathematics, for example through her work with high school programs, and communicating the ubiquity of mathematics to a lay audience. At the age of 16, Wood was the first female member of the U.S. international Math Olympiad team and led the first U.S. team to participate in the international Girls’ Math Olympiad contest for high school students. She has embraced her unique position as a leader in mathematics to inspire others and to be a model for the next generation. Dr. Wood has won numerous prizes and awards, including being the first woman to win the Morgan Prize for the top undergraduate mathematics research in North America and being the first American woman to be named a Putnam Fellow. She received the AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory. In addition, she was named a Clay Mathematics Institute Liftoff Fellow, an Inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, a Sloan Research Fellow, and a recipient of a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering.Dr. Wood received her BS degree from Duke University in 2003 and her PhD from Princeton University in 2009. She was an AIM Fellow from 2009-2014 and named as a Clay Liftoff Fellow in 2009, holding these at Stanford University, and in 2011 joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin as an Assistant Professor. She moved to the University of California at Berkeley as a Professor in 2019 and since May of 2020 has been a Professor at Harvard University.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.