Chuu-Lian Terng () is a Taiwanese-American
mathematician. Her research areas are
differential geometry
Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multili ...
and
integrable systems, with particular interests in completely integrable Hamiltonian
partial differential equations and their relations to differential geometry, the geometry and topology of submanifolds in
symmetric spaces
In mathematics, a symmetric space is a Riemannian manifold (or more generally, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold) whose group of symmetries contains an inversion symmetry about every point. This can be studied with the tools of Riemannian geometry, ...
, and the geometry of isometric actions.
Education and career
She received her B.S. from
National Taiwan University in 1971 and her Ph.D. from
Brandeis University in 1976 under the supervision of
Richard Palais, whom she later married. She is currently a professor emerita at the
University of California at Irvine.
She was a professor at
Northeastern University
Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...
for many years. Before joining Northeastern, she spent two years at the
University of California, Berkeley and four years at
Princeton University. She also spent two years at the
Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton and two years at the
Max-Planck Institute in
Bonn, Germany.
Terng has been an active member of the
Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). She served as AWM President from 1995 to 1997, chaired the Julia Robinson Celebration of Women in Math Conference, which was held July 1–3, 1996, and chaired the Michler Prize and Travel/Mentoring Grant Committees.
[.]
Terng has served on the editorial boards of the
Transactions of the AMS
The ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics published by the American Mathematical Society. It was established in 1900. As a requirement, all articles must be more than 15 p ...
, the Taiwanese Journal of Mathematics, Communications of Analysis and Geometry, the
Proceedings of the AMS, and the Journal of Fixed Point Theory and its Applications.
In 1999, she was selected as the
AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer. Her citation reads:
Her early research concerned the classification of natural vector bundles and natural differential operator
In mathematics, a differential operator is an operator defined as a function of the differentiation operator. It is helpful, as a matter of notation first, to consider differentiation as an abstract operation that accepts a function and return ...
s between them. She then became interested in submanifold geometry. Her main contributions are developing a structure theory for isoparametric submanifolds in and constructing soliton equations from special submanifolds. Recently, Terng and Karen Uhlenbeck ( University of Texas at Austin) have developed a general approach to integrable PDEs that explains their hidden symmetries in terms of loop group actions. She is co-author of the book Submanifold Geometry and Critical Point Theory and an editor of the Journal of Differential Geometry survey volume 4 on "Integrable systems".
Professor Terng served as president of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) from 1995 to 1997 and as Member-at-Large of the Council of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) from 1989 to 1992. She is currently on the Advisory Board of the National Center for Theoretical Sciences in Taiwan, the Steering Committee of the Institute for Advanced Study Park City Summer Institute, and the Editorial Board of the Transactions of the AMS.
Honors
*
Sloan Fellowship in 1980.
*
Humboldt Senior Scientist Award
The Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt-Forschungspreis in German, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of G ...
in 1997.
*
AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer in 1999
* Fellow of the
American Mathematical Society, 2012.
* Fellow of the
Association for Women in Mathematics, 2018 (inaugural class).
Recognition
With
Sun-Yung Alice Chang
Sun-Yung Alice Chang (, hak, Chông Sṳn-yùng, ; born 1948) is a Taiwanese American mathematician specializing in aspects of mathematical analysis ranging from harmonic analysis and partial differential equations to differential geometry. S ...
,
Fan Chung,
Winnie Li
Wen-Ch'ing (Winnie) Li (; born December 25, 1948) is a Taiwanese-American mathematician and a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. ,
Jang-Mei Wu
Jang-Mei Wu is a Taiwanese-American mathematician specializing in complex analysis, potential theory, quasiconformal mapping, and partial differential equations. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Educ ...
, and
Mei-Chi Shaw
Mei-Chi Shaw (; born 1955) is a professor of mathematics at the University of Notre Dame. Her research concerns partial differential equations.
Life and career
Shaw was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1955.Shaw, Mei-Chi. "A Woman Mathematician's Journ ...
,
Terng is one of a group of six women mathematicians from
National Taiwan University called by
Shiing-Shen Chern "a miracle in Chinese history; the glory of the Chinese people".
References
External links
Terng's Home Pageat University of California, Irvine.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Terng, Chuu-Lian
Living people
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
Brandeis University alumni
Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics
National Taiwan University alumni
Northeastern University faculty
Princeton University faculty
Sloan Research Fellows
Taiwanese emigrants to the United States
20th-century Taiwanese mathematicians
University of California, Berkeley faculty
University of California, Irvine faculty
Women mathematicians
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)