Lillian Pierce

Lillian Beatrix Pierce is a mathematician whose research connects number theory with harmonic analysis.[1] She was one of the first mathematicians to prove nontrivial upper bounds on the number of elements of finite order in an ideal class group.[2] She won the 2018 Sadosky Prize for research that "spans and connects a broad spectrum of problems ranging from character sums in number theory to singular integral operators in Euclidean spaces" including in particular "a polynomial Carleson theorem for manifolds".[3] She is a professor of mathematics at Duke University, and a von Neumann Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study.[4]

Lillian Pierce
Alma mater
Employer
Awards

Pierce was home-schooled in Fallbrook, California[1][5][6] and began playing the violin at age four.[7] By age 11 she began performing professionally as a violinist.[1] As a teenager, she also started taking classes at a local community college, accumulating so many units that some of the universities she applied to refused to consider her for freshman admission.[7] She entered Princeton University majoring in mathematics but intending to pursue an MD–PhD program;[8] under the influence of faculty mentor and undergraduate thesis supervisor Elias M. Stein, her interests shifted towards pure mathematics.[1][8][5] As an undergraduate, she also became an intern at the National Security Agency.[1] She was Princeton's 2002 valedictorian and became a Rhodes Scholar, repeating two accomplishments of her brother Niles Pierce from nine years earlier.[5]

She earned a master's degree at the University of Oxford in 2004.[4][1] Returning to Princeton for doctoral study in mathematics, she completed her Ph.D. in 2009. Her dissertation, Discrete Analogues in Harmonic Analysis, was supervised by Stein.[4][9] After postdoctoral studies with Roger Heath-Brown at Oxford and at the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany, she became an assistant professor at Duke in 2014.[4][1] In 2018, she was awarded the Association for Women in Mathematics Sadosky Prize.[10] She received the 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.[11] She was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in the Class of 2021. Her citation read “For contributions to number theory and harmonic analysis.”[12]

Her husband, Tobias Overath, also works at Duke as a neuroscientist.[1]

References
  1. Smith, Robin (September 26, 2014), "Lillian Pierce: A head for pure mathematics", Duke Today, Duke University
  2. Hartnett, Kevin (March 2, 2017), "New Number Systems Seek Their Lost Primes", Quanta Magazine
  3. "Pierce Awarded Sadosky Prize" (PDF), Mathematics People, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 64 (8): 925, September 2017
  4. Curriculum vitae (PDF), July 2017, retrieved 2018-05-12
  5. Stevens, Ruth (June 3, 2002), "Selection as valedictorian a family affair for the Pierces", Princeton Weekly Bulletin, Princeton University, 92 (27)
  6. Nussbaum, Debra (May 21, 2000), "Home Schooling Graduates; Students, Jittery About College at First, Are Doing Well Academically and Fitting In Socially", The New York Times
  7. Stevens, Ruth (March 5, 2001), "Inclined to succeed: USA Today First-teamer Lillian Pierce pursues interests ranging from mathematics to music", Princeton Weekly Bulletin, 90 (19)
  8. Flapan, Laure (November 2017), Diaz-Lopez, Alexander (ed.), "Lillian Pierce Interview" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 64 (10): 1170–1172, doi:10.1090/noti1586
  9. Lillian Pierce at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  10. Sadosky Prize, retrieved 26 January 2019
  11. "President Donald J. Trump Announces Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers", www.whitehouse.gov, 2019-07-02, retrieved 2019-08-03
  12. "2021 Class of Fellows". American Mathematical Society. Retrieved 2 November 2020.

Further reading
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