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Pattern Recognition
Award-winning mathematician Bryna Kra follows the numbers to discover surprising insights about complex systems, while championing women and minorities to strengthen her field.
In 2010, she won the Levi L. Conant Award from the American Mathematical Society for her expository work on the Green-Tao theorem showing the existence of arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions in prime numbers. She was named to the society’s board of trustees in 2015. The following year, she became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Earlier this year, Kra was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, an honor bestowed on the country’s best researchers.
Hoan Nguyen, Nikhil Kalghatgi, and Akhil Kalghatgi Excel at 2019 Putnam Mathematical Competition
Thirteen Northwestern students participated in the 80th Putnam Competition on Saturday, December 7, 2019. Northwestern's team scored 83, ranking 39 out of 488 institutions. Students Harry Nguyen (ranking 212), Nikhil Kalghatgi (ranking 344.5), and Akhil Kalghatgi (ranking 478.5) were the top three participants for Northwestern University-- out of 4,299 total participating students.
One of the most prestigious university-level mathematics competitions in the world, the Putnam Competition is an annual examination consisting of twelve problems, each worth ten points. Testing originality as well as technical competence, the examination's median score is often zero points out of 120.