Welcome to the Department of Mathematics!
Our Department is at an exciting time in our history. We expect to grow dramatically over the next decade, and continue to make advances in fundamental science and our teaching mission.
Our goals as a department are:
1. To provide world class education to our undergraduate and graduate students, and to do this in a way that is welcoming and supportive to all.
2. To perform mathematical research at the highest level, on the fundamental problems in the world.
3. To be ambassadors for mathematics within Vanderbilt, in the Nashville community, and beyond.
Among our 21 research faculty, our research covers a wide swath of mathematics, including homotopy theory, operator algebras, geometric group theory, epidemiology, differential geometry, approximation theory, signal processing, differential equations, numerical analysis, mathematical physics, graph theory, and number theory.
Our faculty has 3 International Congress of Mathematicians speakers, 9 Fellows of the AMS, 2 Fellows of SIAM, 5 Sloan Fellows, 2 NSF CAREER awardees, a Conant Prize winner, a Steele Prize winner, a Simons Fellow, a Humboldt Prize winner, 3 AMS plenary speakers, and a Mirzakhani lecturer.
Department News
Math Hosts First Annual Pi Your Professor Event
Mar. 24, 2025—On March 20, 2025, the Department of Mathematics hosted the first annual Pi Your Professor Event. This was a belated celebration of Pi Day, which is March 14 and generally falls over spring break. The format of Pi Your Professor is quite simple. Undergraduate students are welcome to come to Stevenson Center 1, grab a...
Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Akram Aldroubi’s Research Cited in Industry Patents
Mar. 24, 2025—Prof. Akram Aldroubi is a world-renowned expert in harmonic analysis, functional analysis, and signal processing. While his research is classified as theoretical mathematics, his work has had far-reaching implications in industry. His papers are referenced in several industry-owned patents, indicating that his work has had significant impact on real-world applications and has influenced the development...
Katherine Booth awarded NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship
Feb. 4, 2025—Katherine Booth was awarded a Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Science Foundation in February 2025. This is a highly prestigious award, given to about 40 mathematicians around the country each year. Katherine is a non-degree-seeking graduate student at Vanderbilt, and will receive her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in Spring 2025. Katherine’s research...
Dr. Lorenzo Gavassino featured in Discover Magazine
Jan. 16, 2025—The research of Dr. Lorenzo Gavassino, postdoctoral researcher in the department, and member of the VandyGRAF initiative has recently been featured in Discover Magazine: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/mathematician-reveals-strange-new-enigmas-for-time-travelers According to the article, Lorenzo’s article shows that “The laws of physics suggest [a time traveler’s] memory would be wiped clean as soon as they returned to the present.” Dr....