Professors awarded NSF Fellowships

Two professors in the Department of Mathematics each have been awarded a Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation . The fellowship is for three years and is given to support future leaders in mathematics and statistics by helping them participate in postdoctoral research that will enhance their development .

Elizabeth Field

Elizabeth Field serves as assistant professor (lecturer). “I’m delighted to have received this award, and I’m very excited to be able to continue as a postdoc at the University of Utah and to pursue research projects which will be supported by this fellowship,” said Field. “The Math Department has a fabulous group of undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and faculty researchers in my area, and I’m thrilled to be able to continue to work with them.”

Field’s research intersects three related fields of mathematics: geometry, topology, and algebra. Geometry and topology both study the “shape” of an object, with geometry focusing on rigid features such as distance, and topology concerned with more fluid notions, such as dimension. The algebraic side of what Field studies provides a formal way of describing how geometric and topological objects interact with various other spaces.

Her research takes inspiration from what is known about finitetype surfaces and 3-manifolds, with the goal of extending results to the setting of infinite-type surfaces, as well as to more general algebraic settings. In general, geometry, topology, and algebra have many applications to areas such as neural mapping, data analysis, and cryptography; however, Field’s research is theoretical in nature and doesn’t focus on these applications.

Field is grateful for the support and encouragement of the faculty in her research area, especially to Distinguished Professor Mladen Bestvina, who will serve as her official NSF sponsoring scientist, and assistant professor Priyam Patel, who has inspired many of the goals of Field’s research.

She received a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in 2020 and began teaching at the U in July 2020. Elizabeth Field