Christina Sormani is a professor of mathematics at

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

affiliated with

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in New York City, United States. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, it became an independent college in 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehman, a former New York governor, United ...

and the

CUNY Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University ...

. She is known for her research in

Riemannian geometry Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, defined as manifold, smooth manifolds with a ''Riemannian metric'' (an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smooth function, smo ...

metric geometry In mathematics, a metric space is a Set (mathematics), set together with a notion of ''distance'' between its Element (mathematics), elements, usually called point (geometry), points. The distance is measured by a function (mathematics), functi ...

, and

Ricci curvature In differential geometry, the Ricci curvature tensor, named after Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, is a geometric object which is determined by a choice of Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian metric on a manifold. It can be considered, broadly, as a measure ...

, as well as her work on the notion of intrinsic flat distance.

Career

Sormani received her Ph.D. from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

in 1996 under

Jeff Cheeger Jeff Cheeger (born December 1, 1943) is an American mathematician and Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. His main interest is differential geometry and its connections with topology and an ...

. She then took postdoctoral positions at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

(under

Shing-Tung Yau Shing-Tung Yau (; ; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-American mathematician. He is the director of the Yau Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University and professor emeritus at Harvard University. Until 2022, Yau was the William Caspar ...

) and

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

(under

William Minicozzi II William Philip Minicozzi II is an American mathematician. He was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1967. Career Minicozzi graduated from Princeton University in 1990 and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1994 under the direction o ...

). Sormani is now a Full Professor of Mathematics at Lehman College in the City University of New York and member of the doctoral faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Awards and honors

In 2009, Sormani was an invited speaker at the

Geometry Festival The Geometry Festival is an annual mathematics conference held in the United States. The festival has been held since 1985 at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, University of Maryland, the University of North Ca ...

. She received the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

(AWM) Service Award in 2015. She was recognized for her work planning and coordinating Association for Women in Mathematics activities at the

Joint Mathematics Meetings The Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) is a mathematics conference hosted annually in early January by the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Frequently, several other national mathematics organizations also participate. From 1998 to 2020, the JMM ...

. In 2015, Sormani became a Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
/ref> She was honored for her research in geometry, specifically Ricci curvature. Her mentorship of junior mathematicians from underrepresented groups was also cited in the recognition. Sormani was selected as an Association for Women in Mathematics Fellow in the Class of 2024 "for utilizing every opportunity to open pathways to mathematics for more women and students by creating and maintaining online access to advice, mathematical resources, and information about women mathematicians; for organizing the “Inspiring Talks by Mathematicians” lecture series featuring under-represented speakers, and for her dedicated and active contributions to the AWM."

Selected publications

*Sormani, Christina. (2000). Nonnegative Ricci curvature, small linear diameter growth and finite generation of fundamental groups. ''Journal of Differential Geometry,'' 54(3), pages 547–559
MR 1823314
*Sormani, Christina, & Wei, Guofang. Hausdorff convergence and universal covers. ''Transactions of the'' ''American Mathematical Society,'' 353 (2001), no. 9, pages 3585–3602
MR 1837249
*Sormani, Christinam & Wei, Guofang. Universal covers for Hausdorff limits of noncompact spaces. ''Transactions of the'' ''American Mathematical Society,'' 356 (2004), no. 3, pages 1233–1270
MR 2021619
*Sormani, Christina, & Wenger, Stefan. (2010). Weak convergence of currents and cancellation. ''Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations,'' 38, 183–206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00526-009-0282-x *Lee, Dan A, & Sormani, Christina. (2014). Stability of the positive mass theorem for rotationally symmetric Riemannian manifolds. ''Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik'' (''Crelles Journal'') 686. https://doi.org/10.1515/crelle-2012-0094 *Sormani, Christina, & Wenger, Stefan. (2011). The intrinsic flat distance between Riemannian manifolds and other integral current spaces." ''Journal of Differential Geometry,'' 87(1), pages 117–199
MR 2786592

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sormani, Christina Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Hunter College High School alumni Lehman College faculty CUNY Graduate Center faculty Differential geometers Mathematicians from New York (state) Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics