Honoree
Nets Katz
AWARDS
- Guggenheim Fellow (2012)
- Indiana University Bloomington
BIOGRAPHY
In April of 2012, Indiana University mathematician Nets Katz was awarded one of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's 180 fellowships in its 88th annual competition for the United States and Canada. Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, Katz was chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants.
A professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Mathematics, Katz last year was credited with resolving a 65-year-old problem in combinatorial geometry that sought to determine the minimum number of distinct distances between any finite set of points in a plane. Building upon decades of work by others, Katz and Larry Guth of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., achieved what many thought was unachievable: Solving Paul Erdös' 1946 Distinct Distances Problem. Then, in joint work with Michael Bateman of the University of California Los Angeles, Katz improved the best known bounds in the cap set problem.
The great variety of backgrounds, fields of study and accomplishments among Guggenheim Fellows is one of the hallmarks of the fellowship program. This year's fellows range in age from 27 to 84, and they originate from towns and cities across the United States and Canada. Their projects will carry them to all parts of the world. Katz said the $45,000 award would help support a yearlong leave from IU that will include a visit to Cambridge University, where he will spend time with mathematics professor Ben Green, who also specializes in combinatorics.
In all, 62 disciplines and 74 academic institutions are represented by this year's fellows. Fifty-one fellows are unaffiliated or hold adjunct or part-time positions at universities.
Katz, who came to IU in 2004, becomes the 137th Guggenheim Fellow from IU Bloomington since the award was established in 1925. He holds a B.A. in mathematics from Rice University and a Ph.D. in math from the University of Pennsylvania, and he is on the editorial boards of the Indiana University Mathematics Journal and the Online Journal of Analytic Combinatorics.
A professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Mathematics, Katz last year was credited with resolving a 65-year-old problem in combinatorial geometry that sought to determine the minimum number of distinct distances between any finite set of points in a plane. Building upon decades of work by others, Katz and Larry Guth of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., achieved what many thought was unachievable: Solving Paul Erdös' 1946 Distinct Distances Problem. Then, in joint work with Michael Bateman of the University of California Los Angeles, Katz improved the best known bounds in the cap set problem.
The great variety of backgrounds, fields of study and accomplishments among Guggenheim Fellows is one of the hallmarks of the fellowship program. This year's fellows range in age from 27 to 84, and they originate from towns and cities across the United States and Canada. Their projects will carry them to all parts of the world. Katz said the $45,000 award would help support a yearlong leave from IU that will include a visit to Cambridge University, where he will spend time with mathematics professor Ben Green, who also specializes in combinatorics.
In all, 62 disciplines and 74 academic institutions are represented by this year's fellows. Fifty-one fellows are unaffiliated or hold adjunct or part-time positions at universities.
Katz, who came to IU in 2004, becomes the 137th Guggenheim Fellow from IU Bloomington since the award was established in 1925. He holds a B.A. in mathematics from Rice University and a Ph.D. in math from the University of Pennsylvania, and he is on the editorial boards of the Indiana University Mathematics Journal and the Online Journal of Analytic Combinatorics.
