Federico Ardila (born 1977) is a Colombian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and DJ who researches

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

and specializes in

matroid theory In combinatorics, a matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid Axiomatic system, axiomatically, the most significant being in terms ...

. Ardila graduated from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

with a B.Sc. in mathematics in 1998 and obtained a Ph.D. in 2003 under the supervision of Richard P. Stanley in the same institution. Ardila is currently a professor at the

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

and additionally holds an adjunct position at the University of Los Andes in Colombia.

Early life and education

Ardila was born in Bogotá, Colombia. During his childhood Ardila showed great promise in mathematics, scoring the highest amongst his age group in the fourth grade. While attending the college-prep Colegio San Carlos in Bogotá, Ardila represented Colombia in the International Math Olympiad, winning a bronze medal in 1993 and a silver medal in 1994. Prior to attending MIT, Ardila was already enrolled in another local university. Ardila had never heard of MIT, but a classmate told him that they offered financial aid to everyone, so he applied without knowing how competitive the school was. In addition to mathematics, Ardila enjoys making music and is a co-founder of the Oakland DJ collective La Pelanga.

Career

Under his NSF CAREER grant, Ardila has worked to create a larger and more diverse community of members of underrepresented groups within mathematics. Ardila follows certain principles geared towards cultivating diversity within his field of study, which he calls Axioms: * Axiom 1. Mathematical potential is distributed equally among different groups, irrespective of geographic, demographic, and economic boundaries. * Axiom 2. Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering mathematical experiences. * Axiom 3. Mathematics is a powerful, malleable tool that can be shaped and used differently by various communities to serve their needs. * Axiom 4. Every student deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. As part of his SFSU-Colombia combinatorics initiative, Ardila has provided over 200 hours of lecture videos on YouTube with additional resources for free. He is also well known for his appearances in the popular mathematics YouTube video series ''

Numberphile ''Numberphile'' is an Educational entertainment, educational YouTube channel featuring videos that explore topics from a variety of fields of mathematics. In the early days of the channel, each video focused on a specific number, but the channe ...

''.

Awards

Ardila has received many awards, among which are: * One of the

Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics The Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics are awards given by the Mathematical Association of America to recognize college or university teachers "who have been widely recognized as ...

(2020) *

Simons Foundation The Simons Foundation is an American private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and James Harris Simons, Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States with assets of over $5 ...

Fellowship in Mathematics (2019-2020) * Premio Nacional de Matemáticas of the Colombian Mathematical Society (2019) * Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (2018) * National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2010-2016)

Selected writings

''Lagrangian geometry of matroids''
(2020), with Graham Denham and June Huh
''CAT(0) geometry, robots, and society''
(2019)
''Hopf monoids and generalized permutahedra''
(2017), with Marcelo Aguiar
''Todos Cuentan: Cultivating Diversity in Combinatorics''
(2016)

References

External links

Professional webpage at San Francisco State University

Youtube channel

Twitter

Mathematics Genealogy Project

Google Scholar citations
* ''Numberphile'' videos
Combinatorics and Higher DimensionsThe Cross RatioThe Math (and money) of Soccer Stickers

La Pelanga DJ Collective
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ardila, Federico 21st-century Colombian mathematicians 1979 births Living people Academic staff of the University of Los Andes (Colombia) Academics from Bogotá Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni San Francisco State University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society