Today is Big Give, the UC Berkeley community's annual opportunity to give back to the departments and programs closest to their hearts.
We hope you participate in Big Give by supporting the Math Department. This year, we are raising funds for two important areas.
The Friends of Mathematics Fund will enhance all facets of the department's activities, from enabling undergraduates to organize student groups to innovating the facilities where we investigate a multitude of mathematical problems.
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is the preeminent mathematics competition for undergraduate college students in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The competition consists of two 3-hour sessions, during each session, participants work individually on 6 challenging mathematical problems.
Theodore Danial, Benedikt Vilji Magnússon, Zening Xuan
Theodore Danial, Zening Xuan
Another exciting year is coming to a close, and with that, we're happy to share our newsletter with our community, alumni and friends.
The Department of Mathematics is pleased to share the announcement of the 2026 Clay Research Fellows Oliver Edtmair and Qiuyu Ren. Edtmair received his PhD from Berkeley in 2024 supervised by Professor Michael Hutchings and is now at ETH Zurich, and Ren is receiving his PhD this Spring 2026 under the supervision of Professor Ian Agol.
Congratulations to both of them!
You can read more here: https://www.claymath.org/news/2026-clay-research-fellows/.
The Department of Mathematics congratulates its distinguished alumnus, Dr. San Ling, recipient of the Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award!
Please join the Department of Mathematics in congratulating Professor Wencai Liu, who is a visiting Miller professor this year, was awarded the AMS Centennial Research Fellowship.
You can read more about it here: https://www.ams.org/news?news_id=7585.
Please join the Departmentr of Mathematics in congratulating Professor Vadim Gorin on being awarded the 2026 AMS-EMS Mikhail Gordin Prize.
You can read more about that here: https://www.ams.org/news?news_id=7558.
The Department of Mathematics congratulates Professor Maciej Zworski on being awarded the 2026 Joseph L. Doob Prize, along with Semyon Dyatlov. Read more about it here: News from the AMS.
The Department of Mathematics congratulates Professor Yunqing Tang on being awarded the 2026 AMS Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Number Theory, along with Frank Calegari (who got his PhD from our department) and Vesselin Dimitrov. You can read more about it: AMS Newsroom.
The Department of Mathematics congratulates Profeessor Sug Woo Shin on being elected a 2026 Fellow of the AMS.
You can read more about it: https://www.ams.org/cgi-bin/fellows/fellows_by_year.cgi
The Department of Mathematics congratulates Professor Lin Lin, Professor David Nadler, Professor Sung-Jin Oh, Professor Yunqing Tang and Professor Ruixiang Zhang who are speaking at the ICM 2026.
The Distinguished Scientist Award will be awarded to a researcher who has made significant contributions in the area of inverse problems.
The Department of Mathematics congratulates Professor Alberto Grünbaum for being awarded the IoP (Institute of Physics, England) Distinguished Scientist Award. More details about the award can be found onthe 2025 Applied Inverse Problems announcements.
Applications for the Fall 2025 Mathematics Directed Reading Program are now open! We are looking for enthusiastic undergraduate mentees who would like to do an independent reading project in mathematics, and graduate student mentors to supervise projects.
The application deadline is Tuesday, September 9.
For more information, or to apply, please visit the DRP website.
The Department of Mathematics Congratulates Professor Ian Agol on his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. You can read more here: New Academy Members elected in 2025.
Recognition for the Ennoblement of the Human Sprit in Academics, The Arts, and Human Welfare
Congratulations to Professor Sug Woo Shin for being awarded a 2025 Samsung Ho-Am Prize!
More information about this award please visit: https://www.hoamfoundation.org/eng/award/thisyear.asp
The Department of Mathematics congratulates Professor Tony Feng for being named a Sloan Fellow. You can read more about the award: Six young faculty members named Sloan Fellows.
This two-day conference will celebrate Steve Smale on his 95th birthday by covering topics relating to some of his contributions to the world of mathematics and to the world of mineral collecting.
For more information please visit: Smale@95: A Conference in Honor of Steve Smale.
Please join us in congratulating Professor Olga Holtz for her UC Multicampus Research Program Award. Please read more about these awards at: UC awards $15.5M in research grants to tackle big questions in health, AI, agriculture and climate justice.
Professor Ken Ribet will receive the 2025 AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research for a groundbreaking 1976 paper "A modular construction of unramified p-extensions of Q(μp)."
You can read more about it at News from the AMS.