picture-topProfessor Sun-Yung Alice Chang of Princeton University was the featured guest speaker for the department’s annual Women in Mathematics Day on November 19, 2009. Organized by Professor Donatella Danielli, the day’s activities included:

  • 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.— Luncheon (Lafayette Room, PMU)
  • 4:30-5:30 p.m. — Jean E. Rubin Memorial Lecture (BRNG B268)
    Alice Chang, “Q-curvature in Conformal Geometry”

Professor Chang is Chair of the Mathematics Department at Princeton University. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards for her mathematical achievements and service to the community. She was the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She served as Vice President of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) from 1989 to 1991, and in 1995, she received the AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize for outstanding contributions to mathematics research by a woman. In 2002, she was an invited plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), the most prestigious invitation a mathematician can aspire to have in his or her career. Prof. Chang has also been active in many efforts to increase the representation of women in mathematics.

Jean E. Rubin was Professor of Mathematics at Purdue University from 1967 until her death in 2002. She received a B.S. from Queen’s College in New York City in 1948, an M.A. from Columbia in 1949, and a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1955. She taught at Oregon and Michigan State before coming to Purdue. Professor Rubin was the author of more than 40 papers and five books in set theory and questions related to the axiom of choice.