Kathryn Mann is a mathematician who has won the Rudin Award, Birman Prize, Duszenko Award, and

Sloan Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

for her research in

geometric topology In mathematics, geometric topology is the study of manifolds and Map (mathematics)#Maps as functions, maps between them, particularly embeddings of one manifold into another. History Geometric topology as an area distinct from algebraic topo ...

and

geometric group theory Geometric group theory is an area in mathematics devoted to the study of finitely generated groups via exploring the connections between algebraic properties of such groups and topological and geometric properties of spaces on which these group ...

. She is an associate professor of mathematics at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

Education and career

Mann graduated from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

in 2008, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and philosophy. She completed her Ph.D. in mathematics at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

in 2014. Her dissertation, ''Components of Representation Spaces'', was supervised by

Benson Farb Benson Stanley Farb (born October 25, 1967) is an American mathematician at the University of Chicago. His research fields include geometric group theory and low-dimensional topology. Early life A native of Norristown, Pennsylvania, Farb earned ...

. Mann was a Morrey Visiting Assistant Professor and

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

funded postdoctoral researcher at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

from 2014 to 2016, postdoctoral researcher at the

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Califor ...

in 2015, a visiting professor at

Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

in 2016, and Manning Assistant Professor of Mathematics at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

from 2017 to 2019. She moved to

as an assistant professor in 2019.

Research

Mann's research involves the

symmetries Symmetry () in everyday life refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, the term has a more precise definition and is usually used to refer to an object that is invariant under some transformations ...

manifold In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a N ...

s. She has made significant progress on a problem posed by

Étienne Ghys Étienne Ghys (born 29 December 1954) is a French mathematician. His research focuses mainly on geometry and dynamical systems, though his mathematical interests are broad. He also expresses much interest in the historical development of mathema ...

: when the symmetries of one manifold act nontrivially on a second manifold, must the first manifold have smaller or equal dimension to the second one? She has also studied the rigidity of groups of symmetries of surfaces.

Recognition

In 2016, Mann won the

Mary Ellen Rudin Mary Ellen Rudin (December 7, 1924 – March 18, 2013) was an American mathematician known for her work in set-theoretic topology. In 2013, Elsevier established the Mary Ellen Rudin Young Researcher Award, which is awarded annually to a young res ...

Award for "her deep and extensive work on homeomorphism groups of manifolds". 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 ...

gave Mann their 2019

Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry The Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry is a prize given every other year by the Association for Women in Mathematics to an outstanding young female researcher in topology or geometry. The prize fund for the award was endow ...

, for "major breakthroughs in the theory of dynamics of group actions on manifolds". Also in 2019, the Wrocław Mathematicians Foundation gave Mann the Kamil Duszenko Award. Mann has also been funded by a

National Science Foundation CAREER Award The National Science Foundation CAREER award is the most prestigious award presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States Federal Government to support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through rese ...

and by a

Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

Selected publications

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mann, Kathryn Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Women mathematicians Topologists University of Toronto alumni University of Chicago alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Brown University faculty Cornell University faculty Sloan Research Fellows