Okikiolu, Katherine
1965-present · Contribution: 1990s-present
Analysis and geometry; research on elliptic differential operators and spectral geometry (the relationship between the geometry of a space and the behavior of operators defined on it)
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
The first Black mathematician to receive a Sloan Research Fellowship and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (both 1997); her work appeared in the Annals of Mathematics (2001), among the field's most prestigious journals.
Life & background
British-American mathematician born in 1965 in England to a Nigerian mathematician father (Adebayo Okikiolu) and a British mathematics-teacher mother. PhD, UCLA (1991). Has held positions at Princeton, MIT, and the University of California, San Diego.
Sources
- Mathematicians of the African Diaspora (SUNY Buffalo); AMS
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