Maria Colombo (born 25 May 1989) is an Italian mathematician specializing in

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series ( ...

. She is a professor at the EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland, where she holds the chair for mathematical analysis,

calculus of variations The calculus of variations (or variational calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in Function (mathematics), functions and functional (mathematics), functionals, to find maxima and minima of f ...

and

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to ho ...

Education and career

Colombo was born in

Luino Luino (Western Lombard: ''Lüin'') is a small town and ''comune'' near the border with Switzerland on the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore, in the province of Varese, in the Italian region of Lombardy. Luino received the honorary title of city wi ...

, near the Swiss border of Italy. She competed for Italy in the 2005, 2006, and 2007

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. It is widely regarded as the most prestigious mathematical competition in the wor ...

s, earning bronze, gold, and silver medals respectively. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics at the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa (, UniPi) is a public university, public research university in Pisa, Italy. Founded in 1343, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Together with Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and Sant'Anna School of Advanced S ...

in 2010 and 2011, and completed a Ph.D. in 2015 at the

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa The Scuola Normale Superiore (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. Together with the University of Pi ...

, under the joint supervision of

Luigi Ambrosio Luigi Ambrosio (born 27 January 1963) is a professor at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. His main fields of research are the calculus of variations and geometric measure theory. Biography Ambrosio entered the Scuola Normale Superiore d ...

and

Alessio Figalli Alessio Figalli (; born 2 April 1984) is an Italian mathematician working primarily on the calculus of variations and partial differential equations. He was awarded the Peccot-Vimont Prize and the Peccot Lectures in 2012, the EMS Prize in 201 ...

. Her dissertation, ''Flows of non-smooth vector fields and degenerate elliptic equations: With applications to the Vlasov-Poisson and semigeostrophic systems'', was published as a book in 2017 by Edizioni della Normale. After postdoctoral research with

Camillo De Lellis Camillo De Lellis (born 11 June 1976) is an Italian mathematician who is active in the fields of calculus of variations, hyperbolic systems of conservation laws, geometric measure theory and fluid dynamics. He is a permanent faculty member in ...

at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

, she joined the EPFL as an assistant professor in 2018, and was promoted to full professor in 2021.

Recognition

The

Accademia dei Lincei The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...

gave Colombo their Gioacchino Iapichino Prize for 2016. She was the 2017 winner of the

Carlo Miranda Carlo Miranda (15 August 1912 – 28 May 1982) was an Italian mathematician, working on mathematical analysis, theory of elliptic partial differential equations and complex analysis: he is known for giving the first proof of the Poincaré–Mir ...

Prize of the , and the 2019 winner of the Bartolozzi Prize of the

Italian Mathematical Union The Italian Mathematical Union () is a mathematical society based in Italy. It was founded on December 7, 1922, by Luigi Bianchi, Vito Volterra, and most notably, Salvatore Pincherle, who became the Union's first President. History Salvator ...

. She is the 2022 winner of the biennial Peter Lax Award, to be given at the International Conference on Hyperbolic Problems, and the 2023 winner of the Collatz Prize of the

International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics The International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) is an organisation for professional applied mathematics societies and related organisations. The current president is Wil Schilders. The cash award for each of the prizes is ...

, "for her fundamental contributions to regularity theory and the analysis of singularities in elliptic partial differential equations, geometric variational problems, transport equations, and incompressible fluid dynamics". In 2024, she was awarded the

EMS Prize The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The curren ...

for ''breakthrough results in fluid dynamics, optimal transport and kinetic theory, and for her impact on analysis more broadly''. That same year, she was awarded the

Stampacchia Medal The Stampacchia Gold Medal is an international prize awarded every three years by the Italian Mathematical Union (''Unione Matematica Italiana'' – ''UMI'' ) together with the Ettore Majorana Foundation (Erice), in recognition of outstanding cont ...

Personal life

Colombo is married to Simone, an engineer, with whom she has four children.

References

External links

Home page
*Website of th
Chair of Mathematical Analysis, Calculus of Variations and PDEs
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Colombo, Maria 1989 births Living people Italian mathematicians Italian women mathematicians Italian mathematical analysts University of Pisa alumni Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa alumni Academic staff of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne International Mathematical Olympiad participants People from Luino