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The Hertz Foundation announced that it has awarded fellowships to four students with MIT Math ties:

Matthew Caren ’25 studied math, electrical engineering and computer science, and music at MIT. He researches computational models of how people use their voices to communicate sound at CSAIL, and interpretable real-time machine listening systems at the MIT Music Technology Lab.

Arav Karighattam is a 2024 Harvard alum who is coming to MIT to pursue a doctorate in mathematics. Karighattam is fascinated by algebraic number theory and arithmetic geometry and seeks to understand the mysteries underlying the structure of solutions to Diophantine equations.

Benjamin Lou ’25 received his MIT SB in mathematics and physics, and will pursue his doctorate at MIT to to work on unifying quantum mechanics and gravity, with an eye toward uncovering experimentally testable predictions. One of his research projects applies symplectic techniques to understand the nature of precision measurements using quantum states of light.

Albert Qin ‘24 majored in mathematics and physics at MIT, and is also interested in biology, researching single-molecule approaches to study transcription factor diffusion in living cells and studying the cell circuits that control animal development. Qin is currently pursuing a PhD at Princeton University, addressing questions about the behavior of neural networks.

They are among eight total recipients at MIT, and a total of 19 selected from across the United States. The prestigious award provides each recipient with five years of doctoral-level research funding (up to a total of $250,000).

Read more at MIT News.

The 2025 Charles and Holly Housman Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to three MIT Math community members for their skills and dedication in undergraduate teaching.

Graduate student Keita Allen was recognized for his “true passion for education” and for helping other students, including as a UROP mentor.

Housman awards for instructors were given to Jonathan Bloom, for his ability to teach complex math concepts in a dynamic and engaging way, and to Miguel Moreira, for his supportive teaching style, including as a UROP mentor.

Congratulations, Jonathan, Keita, and Miguel!

The 2025 Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Prize, for a research paper accepted for publication in a major journal, has been awarded to graduate students Ilya Dumanski for his paper “A Geometric Approach to Feigin-Loktev Fusion Product and Cluster Relations in Coherent Satake Category,” International Mathematics Research Notices, Volume 2024, Issue 22, November 2024, and to Kyle McKee for his paper “Magnetohydrodynamic flow control in Hele-Shaw cells,” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, Sept. 13, 2024.

Kyle is also the recipient of the David J. Benney Prize, which recognizes excellence in applied mathematics, with preference given to students in physical applied math, computational science, numerical analysis, computational biology, or theoretical physics. He was recognized for a mathematical style “which is directed toward elucidating the physics of complex continuum systems via mathematical modeling.”

This award honors David Benney, an applied math professor who died in 2015. Benney chaired the Applied Mathematics Committee from 1983-1985, and served as Department Head for two terms, 1989-1999.

Congratulations, Ilya and Kyle!

Three undergraduates and a graduate student received the 2025 Peter Baddoo Community Building Award, for individuals who have made significant contributions to building and strengthening our MIT Math community.

Matija Delic, Pitchayut (Mark) Saengrungkongka, and George Shaker were recognized for their enthusiasm and outreach.

Mark was awarded for his involvement in organizations such as HMMT and for helping out the community by typing up lecture notes, coordinating psets collaboration, reaching out to prospective math majors, and setting up Discord servers for advanced graduate courses.

Matija was recognized for organizing collaborative problem-solving sessions, mentoring fellow students, and initiating events.

George was acknowledged as “the GOAT” for his ability to introduce many to the “beauty of math” and to department resources. He also often leaves math problems on random boards across campus that draw interest from students, faculty, and even visitors.

Graduate student Max Daniels was called “a cornerstone of our community” for his work with the Pumagrass Seminar, the annual department retreat, and the graduate student open house.

This award is named in honor of the late Department instructor Peter Baddoo, who received the Community Building Award in 2022 for organizing tea and coffee hours for the postdoc community.

Congratulations, George, Mark, Matija, and Max!