Bernd Sturmfels

Director at the Max Planck Institute
for Mathematics in the Sciences
Leipzig, Germany



Professor Emeritus in Mathematics,
Statistics and Computer Science,
University of California at Berkeley

Research Interests: Algebraic Geometry, Combinatorics, Commutative Algebra, Algebraic Statistics, Convex Optimization, Computational Biology, Theoretical Physics

Students Going Places

News from 2026: Yulia Alexandr will live down under. She accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Melbourne. Lizzie Pratt will be a postdoc at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo. Svala Sverrisdóttir will join Merton College in Oxford as a junior research fellow. Hannah Friedman will move to ICERM at Brown University for her first postdoc year. Congratulations to everone!!

Honorary Doctorates

On December 2, 2023, I was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bern, Switzerland. In June 2024, I will be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Chicago. Many thanks to everyone who supported me.

Metric Algebraic Geometry

Paul Breiding, Kathlén Kohn and I published this book in the Oberwolfach Seminars Series. We hope you'll find it useful for teaching or self-study.

Invitation to Nonlinear Algebra

Mateusz Michalek and I published this textbook in the Graduate Studies Series of the American Mathematical Society. We hope you'll find it useful for teaching or self-study.

What is Algebraic Geometry?

This is a webinar, aimed at a general audience, in the NAS series Mathematical Frontiers. Mark Green hosts short presentations by Ravi Vakil and me.

Adventures in Mentoring

I wrote this piece for the Early Career Section of the Notices of the AMS.

Excellence through Diversity

This article appeared in the newsletter of the European Women in Mathematics (EWM).

Nina and Pascal

My daughter Nina is a Fashion Designer. She works for Athleta. Click here for a article that features her. My son Pascal obtained his PhD in Computer Science. You can find him on Google Scholar.