Melanie Wood

Melanie Wood
Melanie Wood in 2007
Photo from Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (MFO)
Born 1981 (age 36–37)
Indianapolis, Indiana
Nationality American
Alma mater Duke University
Princeton University
Awards

Morgan Prize (2004)
AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory (2017)

NSF CAREER Award (2017)
Scientific career
Fields Mathematics
Institutions Stanford University
University of Wisconsin
Doctoral advisor Manjul Bhargava

Melanie Matchett Wood (born 1981[1]) is an American mathematician who became the first female American to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her Ph.D. in 2009 at Princeton University (under Manjul Bhargava) and is currently Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, after spending 2 years as Szegö Assistant Professor at Stanford University.

Wood was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Sherry Eggers and Archie Wood, both middle school teachers. Her father died of cancer when Wood was six weeks old.[2]

While a high school student at Park Tudor School in Indianapolis, Wood (then aged 16) became the first, and until 2004 the only female American to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team, receiving silver medals in the 1998 and 1999 International Mathematical Olympiad.[3] Wood was also a cheerleader and student newspaper editor at her school.[4]

In 2003, Wood graduated from Duke University where she won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, Fulbright fellowship, and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship, in addition to becoming the first American woman and second woman overall to be named a Putnam Fellow in 2002.[5][6][7] During the 2003–2004 year she studied at Cambridge University. She was also named the Deputy Leader of the U.S. team that finished second overall at the 2005 International Mathematical Olympiad.

In 2004, she won the Morgan Prize for work in two topics, Belyi-extending maps and P-orderings, making her the first woman to win this award.[3][7]

In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[8]

In 2017 she received an NSF Career Award and the AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory from the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Selected publications

  • Wood, Melanie (2003). "P-orderings: a metric viewpoint and the non-existence of simultaneous orderings". Journal of Number Theory. 99 (1): 36–56. doi:10.1016/S0022-314X(02)00056-2. MR 1957243.

References

  1. ↑ "AWM Essay Contest: Leena Shah". Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  2. ↑ Olson, Steven (2005). Count Down: Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's Toughest Math Competition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 18. ISBN 0-618-56212-5.
  3. 1 2 "Melanie Wood Interview". Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  4. ↑ Rimer, Sara (2008-10-10). "Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  5. ↑ "Duke Magazine-Where Are They Now?-January/February 2010". Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  6. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-07-07. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
  7. 1 2 http://www.ams.org/notices/200404/comm-morgan.pdf
  8. ↑ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-09-01.
  • An Interview with Melanie Matchett Wood (The Girls' Angle Bulletin)
  • A Conversation with Melanie Wood (Math Horizons magazine)
  • The Girl Who Loved Math (Discover magazine)
  • Melanie Wood: The Making of a Mathematician (Duke University profile)
  • Melanie Wood (homepage at the University of Wisconsin)
  • Rimer, Sara (October 10, 2008). "Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds". New York Times.
  • Melanie Wood at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  • "Melanie Wood's results". International Mathematical Olympiad.
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