Kate Okikiolu Explained

Kate Adebola Okikiolu
Nationality:British
Fields:Mathematical analysis
Elliptic operators
Workplaces:Princeton University
UCSD
Johns Hopkins University
Alma Mater:University of Cambridge
UCLA
Thesis Title:The Analogue of the Strong Szego Limit Theorem on the Torus and the 3-Sphere
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Thesis Year:1991
Doctoral Advisors:Sun-Yung Alice Chang
John B. Garnett
Awards:Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

Kate Adebola Okikiolu (born 1965) is a British mathematician.[1] She is known for her work with elliptic differential operators as well as her work with inner-city children.[2]

Early life and education

Okikiolu was born in 1965 in England. Her father was George Olatokunbo Okikiolu, a renowned Nigerian mathematician[3] and the most published black mathematician on record.[4] Her British mother was a high school mathematics teacher. Okikiolu received a B.A. in mathematics from Cambridge University in 1987. In 1991 she earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California at Los Angeles,[5] for her thesis The Analogue of the Strong Szego Limit Theorem on the Torus and the 3-Sphere.[4] [6]

Career

Based on her PhD work, Okikiolu resolved a conjecture of Peter Wilcox Jones concerning a continuous version of the travelling salesman problem.[7] in her paper Characterization of subsets of rectifiable curves in [8] Okikiolu was an instructor and later assistant professor at Princeton University from 1993 to 1995. She then worked as a visiting assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined the faculty at the University of California at San Diego in 1995. In 2011 she joined the Mathematics Department at Johns Hopkins University.[9]

She was an invited speaker at the 1996 meeting of the Association of Women in Mathematics.[10] She also delivered the Claytor-Woodard lecture at the 2002 meeting of the National Association of Mathematicians, an organization for African-American mathematicians.[6]

Honors and awards

In 1997, Okikiolu won a Sloan Research Fellowship, becoming the first black recipient of this fellowship. In 1997 she also was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers[11] for both her mathematical research and her development of mathematics curricula for inner-city school children. This award is given to only 60 scientists and engineers each year and has a prize of $500,000.[6]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Katherine Okikiolu - Mathematicians of the African Diaspora. 2020-06-10. www.math.buffalo.edu.
  2. Web site: Katherine Okikiolu - Biography . 2022-08-10 . Maths History . en.
  3. Web site: Katherine Okikiolu - Biography . 2022-08-11 . Maths History . en.
  4. Book: African Doctorates in Mathematics. African Mathematical Union. Commission on the History of Mathematics in Africa. 9781430318675. Paulus Gerdes. Paulus Gerdes. 2007. 26.
  5. Web site: Katherine Okikiolu - Mathematicians of the African Diaspora . 2022-08-11 . www.math.buffalo.edu.
  6. Book: Spangenburg, Ray. African Americans in science, math, and invention. registration. 2003. Facts on File. New York, NY. 0816048061. Moser, Kit.
  7. Web site: Williams . Scott W. . 2008 . Black Women in Mathematics . 11 August 2022.
  8. Okikiolu . Kathleen . Characterization of subsets of rectifiable curves in . J. London Math. Soc. . 1992 . 46 . 2 . 336–348 . 10.1112/jlms/s2-46.2.336 . 20 June 2020.
  9. Web site: Meet Katherine Okikiolu . 2022-08-11 . The Stemettes Zine . en-GB.
  10. Web site: Women and Minorities in Mathematics . 2022-08-11 . cs.appstate.edu.
  11. Web site: The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers: Recipient Details NSF - National Science Foundation . 2022-08-11 . www.nsf.gov.