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March 9, 2018
| Atlanta, GA
Congratulations go to 8 of our colleagues, who will be promoted this year as follows:
Tenure and promotion to Associate Professor:
Zaher Hani
Jennifer Hom
Joseph Rabinoff
Martin Short
Kirsten Wickelgren
Promotion to Full Professor:
Plamen Iliev
Anton Leykin
Zhiwu Lin
Biosketches:
Promotion to Associate Professor
Dr. Jennifer Hom
Dr. Hom has been on the faculty of GT for two years. She has published 17 papers and has earned a Sloan Fellowship in 2015 and an NSF CAREER Award in 2016. Her research is in low-dimensional topology, and in particular she is a leading expert in the powerful machinery of Heegaard-Floer homology. Low-dimensional topology studies manifolds, which are spaces that locally resemble Euclidean space but globally may have more interesting structure, much like the space we live in. Manifolds arise throughout science and engineering in such diverse ways as configuration spaces of mechanical linkages, solution spaces to partial differential equations, and even models for the universe. Dr. Hom received her degree in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011. Prior to arriving at Georgia Tech, she was a Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study. She has mentored 20 undergraduates (17 at Columbia, 3 at Tech).
Dr. Zaher Hani
Dr. Hani has been at Georgia Tech for four years. He has published 16 papers (nine while at Georgia Tech) and one preprint. He has had two standard NSF research grants, one in 2013 while a postdoc and one in 2016 while at Georgia Tech. Additionally, he was awarded an NSF CAREER grant in 2017 and a Sloan Fellowship in 2016. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angles in 2011 under the supervision of Prof. Terence Tao. He has received several awards, most notably: The Alfred Sloan Research Fellowship in 2016, and The Simons Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2011. Dr. Hani’s research is in the area of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs), particularly nonlinear dispersive and wave PDEs. These are equations that typically arise in physics and engineering to model various phenomena in ocean sciences, plasma physics, or general relativity, to mention only a few. His research attempts to answer open problems pertaining to the qualitative and quantitative behavior of such equations.
Dr. Joseph Rabinoff
Dr. Rabinoff joined Georgia Tech in 2013, after receiving his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2009, and completing a postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University in 2009–2013. He has had research proposals funded by the NSF and the NSA. Dr. Rabinoff’s research is in the areas of algebraic and arithmetic geometry, with a focus on the interplay between number theory and algebraic geometry. Number theory, one of the oldest and most storied branches of mathematics, involves the study of integer or rational solutions to polynomial equations, and the complex solutions to such equations form geometric objects. He has published 14 papers and posted two more. . He won a Certificate of Teaching Excellence from the Derek Bok Center at Harvard University in 2012. He has supervised an undergraduate thesis project and an undergraduate research project. Recently, Dr. Rabinoff was also awarded CTL/BP Jr. Faculty Teaching Excellence Award.
Dr. Martin Short
Dr. Short has been Assistant Professor of Mathematics at GT for 4 years. He received his degree in 2006 from the University of Arizona, and was then a postdoc at UCLA until joining GT in 2013. He has received NSF and ARO grant funding both at GT and UCLA. His research is in applied mathematics, specifically of social systems with emphasis on crime, where he has developed new models and algorithms for predicting crime patterns and defending against crime. This work has led to a company, PredPol Inc, that provides software to police departments to predict crime hotspots. He has published 14 peer-reviewed research papers while at GT, and 35 in total, with 3 additional papers under review. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the Lexis Nexis Dean's award at GT for excellence in teaching in 2014. He is advising one PhD student at GT and has mentored four undergraduates at GT and 26 undergraduates at UCLA.
Dr. Kirsten Wickelgren
Dr. Wickelgren has been at Georgia Tech for four years. At Georgia Tech, she has written 12 research articles, and has had two proposals funded, one three year NSF grant, and one five year NSF-CAREER grant. Her research is in algebraic topology, algebraic geometry and number theory. The gist of algebraic topology is that one can use algebra to answer questions about topological spaces. In addition to being a profound and beautiful subject on its own, algebraic topology has applications as diverse as analyzing large data sets, the coverage of sensor networks, and Equilibria in game theory/economic models. She did her undergraduate work at Harvard University (A.B.-A.M. 2003), and her Ph.D. is from Stanford University (2009). After completing her Ph.D., she was awarded an American Institute of Math (AIM) 5-year fellowship, and was subsequently an AIM 5-year fellow at Harvard University from 2009–13 before coming to Georgia Tech in 2013.
Promotion to Full Professor
Dr. Plamen Iliev
Dr. Iliev is an Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics. He has MS from Sofia University, DEA from the University of Paris VI, and Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Louvain. Subsequently, he was a Morrey Assistant Professor in UC Berkeley before moving to Georgia Tech in 2003. His research stands at the crossroads of several different areas of mathematics and physics related to integrable systems and orthogonal polynomials. His recent results include: the derivation of spectral equations for hypergeometric functions, which play an important role in combinatorics, probability, and mathematical physics; criteria for Fejer-Riesz factorizations of bivariate polynomials, which are related to the famous 17th problem of Hilbert. He has published 36 papers and has been supported by NSF and the Simons Foundation. He has received 14 "Thank a teacher" certificates at Georgia Tech, and was a Hesburgh Award Teaching Fellow in 2010.
Dr. Anton Leykin
Dr. Leykin has been at Georgia Tech for eight years. In his research he studies computational aspects of algebraic geometry in application to solving of system of polynomial equations. His recent results include new theorems, algorithms, and software for numerical algebraic geometry and asymptotic algebra. He is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award and a 2017 College of Sciences Cullen-Peck Scholar Award. He has been an invited speaker at national and international conferences. He has organized many workshops, conferences, and summer schools. Dr. Leykin has developed several special courses and has been experimenting with new technology in the classroom. He obtained a Diploma in mathematics from Kharkov State Uni-
versity in 1997 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Minnesota in 2003.
versity in 1997 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Minnesota in 2003.
Dr. Zhiwu Lin
Before moving to Georgia Tech in 2008, Dr. Lin was a Courant Instructor at New York University (2003-2006) and an assistant professor at the University of Missouri (2006-2008). From 2005 to the present, his research has been supported by four NSF grants (as PI) including one recommended this year. He was awarded a Simons Fellowship for 2013-2014. Dr. Lin’s research is focused on the dynamical behaviors of PDE models in fluid mechanics, plasmas, and nonlinear waves. He had developed new methods to study stability and instability of coherent states, invariant manifolds near unstable states, and the role of these invariant structures in the longtime dynamics. These have important applications on the design of fusion devices, the transition to turbulence, and the understanding of large scale motion in atmosphere and oceans etc. Lin got his Bachelor degree from Peking University (1995), Masters degree from Tokyo University (1999) and Ph.D. from Brown University (2003).
These promotions are a result of the careful consideration of the Jr and Sr promotion committees, ACF, DOTE, RPT mentors, Faculty Affairs Administrative Specialist, and others who made invaluable contributions to our RPT processes.
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