About the Department
WELCOME TO NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY'S MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
Our department is committed to pursuing excellence in mathematics research and teaching. Our award-winning faculty carry out cutting-edge research in fields including Algebra, Algebraic Geometry, Dynamical Systems and Ergodic Theory, Geometric Analysis, Geometry, Harmonic Analysis, Lie groups, Mathematical Physics, Number Theory, PDE, Probability, Representation Theory and Topology. We are an energetic and collaborative department, with many faculty working across several of these fields.
Mathematics is the language of science and has a central role to play in the development of tools and new ideas across the physical and biological sciences, statistics, data science, engineering and the social sciences. Our faculty have leadership and advisory roles in the National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology, located in downtown Chicago, the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation, hosted at the University of Chicago, and the transdisciplinary Institute for Data, Econometrics, Algorithms, and Learning.
Our department activities include seminars, colloquia and conferences. We host three distinguished lecture series: the annual Alexandra Bellow Distinguished Lecture Series and Mark and Joanna Pinsky Distinguished Lecture Series, and the biennial Yamabe Lectures. Our department takes part in the selection of the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize in Mathematics, awarded every two years, and hosts activities for the prize winners. Since the 1970s our department has supported an Emphasis Year in a topic of interest to our faculty, postdocs and students. Emphasis Years typically feature conferences, workshops, summer schools, long-term visitors and other research activities.
We have vibrant and highly ranked graduate and undergraduate programs in mathematics. Our graduate students have been successful in obtaining top postdoctoral positions both in the US and abroad. Our undergraduate teaching mission is supported by our award-winning teaching track faculty. Our math majors go on to highly successful careers in academia and industry.
Mathematics is for everyone. Our innovative Causeway Postbaccalaureate Program expands opportunities in mathematics for all students. The Northwestern Emerging Scholars Program aims to bring a wider group of students into the math major. Our inclusion and outreach activities include a Math Circle for Evanston-area schoolers.
We are a close-knit community devoted to our mission to create and broadly disseminate mathematics, the “Queen of the Sciences”.