2019 Researcher of the Year – Rising Star
Natural Sciences and Engineering Heading link
Benjamin Antieau, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dr. Antieau is uniquely valued for his exceptionally broad background, his ability to combine ideas and techniques from a variety of fields, and his distinctive insights. His exceptional work resulted in receipt of an NSF CAREER award; additionally he has been recognized internationally as the winner of the 2018 K-theory Award for his groundbreaking contributions to these rapidly developing areas. The prestigious K-theory Award is given to the one or two “most deserving young mathematicians in K-Theory” every four years in conjunction with the International Congress of Mathematics. In 2019 Dr. Antieau published two (unrelated) papers in Inventiones Mathematicae. This journal is among the top three or four journals for all of mathematics and having a single paper appear in one of the top ten journals is the pinnacle of success for a whole career. To publish two in the same year, in unrelated projects, is extremely rare, and indicative of the impact Dr. Antieau has on his field. His dedication to educating the next generation of mathematicians is noteworthy; he has graduated three Ph.D. students in the past three years with four more expected to defend in the next two years. Through his NSF CAREER award, he has hosted five summer schools and workshops over the last three years. In addition to his mentoring, he continues to be a sought after nationally and internationally as a speaker and a visiting professor. He was co-founder and served as fist director of the Mathematical Computing Laboratory, an undergraduate research center at UIC. In summary, Dr. Antieau is well deserving of the 2019 Rising Star award for National Sciences and Engineering and we look forward to continuing to hear about his tremendous accomplishments.