Karen Uhlenbeck
Karen Uhlenbeck | |
---|---|
Born | Karen Keskulla August 24, 1942 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
Education | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (BA) New York University Brandeis University (MA, PhD) |
Known for | Calculus of variations Geometric analysis Minimal surfaces Yang–Mills theory |
Spouses |
|
Awards | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign |
Thesis | The calculus of variations and global analysis (1968) |
Doctoral advisor | Richard Palais |
Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck
Uhlenbeck was elected to the
Life and career
Uhlenbeck was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to engineer Arnold Keskulla and schoolteacher and artist Carolyn Windeler Keskulla. While she was a child, the family moved to New Jersey.[11] Uhlenbeck's maiden name, Keskulla, comes from Keskküla and from her grandfather who was Estonian, while her current surname is Dutch.[12] Uhlenbeck received her B.A. (1964) from the University of Michigan.[2][4] She began her graduate studies at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, and married biophysicist Olke C. Uhlenbeck (the son of physicist George Uhlenbeck) in 1965. When her husband went to Harvard, she moved with him and restarted her studies at Brandeis University, where she earned an MA (1966) and PhD (1968) under the supervision of Richard Palais.[2][4] Her doctoral dissertation was titled The Calculus of Variations and Global Analysis.[13]
After temporary jobs at the
Research
Uhlenbeck is one of the founders of the field of geometric analysis, a discipline that uses differential geometry to study the solutions to differential equations and vice versa.[17] She has also contributed to topological quantum field theory and integrable systems.[2][18]
Together with Jonathan Sacks in the early 1980s, Uhlenbeck established regularity estimates that have found applications to studies of the singularities of harmonic maps and the existence of smooth local solutions to the Yang–Mills–Higgs equations in gauge theory.[EMI][MIC][RSY] In particular, Simon Donaldson describes their joint 1981 paper The existence of minimal immersions of 2-spheres[EMI] as a "landmark paper... which showed that, with a deeper analysis, variational arguments can still be used to give general existence results" for harmonic map equations.[19] Building on these ideas, Uhlenbeck initiated a systematic study of the
In particular, her work is described by
Outreach
In 1991, Uhlenbeck co-founded, with Herbert Clemens and Dan Freed, the Park City Mathematics Institute (PCMI) with the mission to "provide an immersive educational and professional development opportunity for several parallel communities from across the larger umbrella of the mathematics profession."[22][6] Uhlenbeck also co-founded the Women and Mathematics Program at the Institute for Advanced Study "with the mission to recruit and retain more women in mathematics."[23][6] British theoretical physicist and author Jim Al-Khalili describes Uhlenbeck as a "role model" for her work in promoting a career in mathematics to young people, particularly women.[24]
Personal life
Uhlenbeck is a self-described "messy reader" and "messy thinker", with boxes of books stacked on her desk at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. In spontaneous remarks made to Institute colleagues after winning the Abel Prize in March 2019, Uhlenbeck noted that for lack of prominent female role models during her apprenticeship in the field of mathematics, she had instead emulated chef Julia Child: "She knew how to pick the turkey up off the floor and serve it".[25]
Awards and honors
In March 2019, Uhlenbeck became the first woman to receive the
Uhlenbeck also won the
The Association for Women in Mathematics included her in the 2020 class of AWM Fellows for "her groundbreaking and profound contributions to modern geometric analysis; for establishing a career as one of the greatest mathematicians of our time, despite the considerable challenges facing women when she entered the field; for using her experiences navigating these challenges to create and sustain programs to address them for future generations of women. For a lifetime of breaking barriers; and for being the first woman to win the Abel Prize".[32]
She was the Noether Lecturer of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 1988.[18] In 1990, she was a plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians, as only the second woman (after Emmy Noether) to give such a lecture.[2][3]
Her other awards include the University of Michigan alumna of the year (1984),
Selected publications
Books
I4M. | ISBN 0-387-96036-8. 2nd ed., 1991. Translated into Russian by Yu. P. Solovyev, Mir, 1988.[35] |
Research articles
RNL. | Uhlenbeck, Karen (1977). "Regularity for a class of non-linear elliptic systems".
S2CID 11166753 . |
EMI. | Sacks, Jonathan; Uhlenbeck, Karen (1981). "The existence of minimal immersions of 2-spheres" (PDF).
MR 0604040 . |
MIC. | Sacks, J.; Uhlenbeck, K. (1982). "Minimal immersions of closed Riemann surfaces" (PDF).
MR 0654854. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 27, 2017. |
RSY. | Uhlenbeck, Karen K. (1982). "Removable singularities in Yang–Mills fields".
MR0526970 |
CLP. | Uhlenbeck, Karen K. (1982). "Connections with bounds on curvature".
S2CID 124912932 . |
RHM. | MR 0664498 . |
CMS. | Uhlenbeck, Karen K. (1983). "Closed minimal surfaces in hyperbolic 3-manifolds". In
MR 0795233 . |
EHY. | Uhlenbeck, Karen;
MR 0861491 . |
HML. | Uhlenbeck, Karen (1989). "Harmonic maps into Lie groups: classical solutions of the chiral model".
MR 1001271 . |
HMY. | Uhlenbeck, Karen (1992). "On the connection between harmonic maps and the self-dual Yang-Mills and the sine-Gordon equations".
MR 1165884 . |
See also
References
- ^ Bill Chappell (March 19, 2019). "U.S. Mathematician Becomes First Woman To Win Abel Prize, 'Math's Nobel'". NPR. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. "Karen Uhlenbeck". MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. University of St Andrews.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Karen Uhlenbeck". Biographies of Women Mathematicians. Agnes Scott College.
- ^ a b c d e f g Katterman, Lee (December 6, 1999). "Michigan Great Karen K. Uhlenbeck: Pioneer in mathematical analysis—and for women mathematicians". The University Record. University of Michigan. Archived from the original on June 11, 2011. Retrieved December 19, 2014.
- ^ "Karen Uhlenbeck". Institute for Advanced Study. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Garrand, Danielle (March 19, 2019). "A woman just won the prize known as "math's Nobel" — for the first time ever". CBS News. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved May 17, 2021.
- ^ a b "2019: Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck". The Abel Prize. Retrieved July 22, 2022.
- ^ Meilan Solly (March 20, 2019). "Karen Uhlenbeck Is the First Woman to Win Math's Top Prize". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
- ^ Chang, Kenneth (March 19, 2019). "Karen Uhlenbeck Is First Woman to Receive Abel Prize in Mathematics – Dr. Uhlenbeck helped pioneer geometric analysis, developing techniques now commonly used by many mathematicians". The New York Times. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ Al-Khalili, Jim. "A biography of Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck". abelprize.no. Archived from the original on July 15, 2019. Retrieved July 15, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Allyn Jackson (2018). "Interview with Karen Uhlenbeck". Celebratio Mathematica.
- ^ Karen Uhlenbeck at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ISBN 978-0-471-44459-6.
- ^ "AMS Committees". American Mathematical Society. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
- ^ "Mathematics Emeritus Faculty". University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved March 16, 2024.
- ^ Klarreich, Erica (March 19, 2019). "Karen Uhlenbeck, Uniter of Geometry and Analysis, Wins Abel Prize". Quanta.
- ^ a b "Karen Uhlenbeck". Profiles of Women in Mathematics: The Emmy Noether Lectures. Association for Women in Mathematics. Archived from the original on January 12, 2015. Retrieved December 19, 2014..
- ^ doi:10.1090/noti1806.
- S2CID 67774341.
- ^ Donaldson, Simon K. (2005). "Yang–Mills theory and Geometry" (PDF).
- ^ "About PCMI: Mission, History, Summer Session". Institute for Advanced Study. January 27, 2018. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ "Women and Mathematics". Institute for Advanced Study. August 5, 2008. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ a b Pallab Ghosh (March 19, 2019). "Bubble maths researcher wins top award". BBC. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ Roberts, Siobhan (April 8, 2019). "In Bubbles, She Sees a Mathematical Universe". The New York Times. Retrieved April 9, 2019.
- ^ "US Mathematician Becomes First Woman To Win Prestigious Abel Prize". NDTV.com. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
- ^ Gift from Uhlenbeck Funds Karen EDGE Fellowship Notices of the AMS, Vol 67, No 2, pp 228–230
- ^ "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details". National Science Foundation. Retrieved December 13, 2009.
- ^ "UT Austin mathematics professor wins National Medal of Science". Univ. of Texas. November 13, 2000. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012. Retrieved December 19, 2014..
- ^ "Three UT Austin professors win prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships". Univ. of Texas. April 23, 2001. Archived from the original on December 20, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2014..
- ^ "List of Fellows". American Mathematical Society. Retrieved August 28, 2013..
- ^ "2020 Class of AWM Fellows". Association for Women in Mathematics. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
- ^ "Honorary Degree – University Awards & Recognition – The Ohio State University". osu.edu. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ "Princeton awards six honorary degrees". Princeton University. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
- ^ Reviews of Instantons and Four-Manifolds:
- Bourguignon, J.-P. zbMATH. Zbl 0559.57001.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link
- Bourguignon, J.-P. zbMATH.
- doi:10.1112/blms/17.4.410.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link - MR 0757358.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link - Parker, Thomas (March 1987). JSTOR 2030965.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link - PMID 17839573.
Further reading
- "Complete Bibliography". Celebratio Mathematica.
- Clifford Henry Taubes (2018). "Karen Uhlenbeck's contributions to gauge theoretic analysis". Celebratio Mathematica.
- Allyn Jackson (2018). "Interview with Karen Uhlenbeck". Celebratio Mathematica.
- Karen Uhlenbeck (1996). "Coming to grips with success: a profile of Karen Uhlenbeck". Celebratio Mathematica.
- Lee Katterman (1999). "Michigan Great Karen K. Uhlenbeck: Pioneer in mathematical analysis — and for women mathematicians". Celebratio Mathematica.
- Claudia Henrion (1997). "A profile of Karen Uhlenbeck". Celebratio Mathematica.
- UT News, The University of Texas, Austin (2000). "UT Austin mathematics professor wins National Medal of Science". Celebratio Mathematica.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
External links
- Quotations related to Karen Uhlenbeck at Wikiquote
- Official website
- Dundas, Bjørn Ian; Skau, Christian (March 2020). "Interview with Abel Laureate Karen Uhlenbeck" (PDF). doi:10.1090/noti2049.
- https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Uhlenbeck_Karen/
- https://scientificwomen.net/women/karen-uhlenbeck-130