image: Karin Melnick of the University of Maryland has been awarded the prestigious AMS Centennial Fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year. view more
Credit: Photo by Riza Falk.
Providence, RI---Karin Melnick of the University of Maryland has been awarded the prestigious AMS Centennial Fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year. The fellowship is presented annually to outstanding mathematicians who have held the doctoral degree for between three and twelve years. The primary selection criterion is excellence in research achievement. The stipend for the 2012-2013 Centennial Fellowship is US$80,000, plus an expense allowance of US$8,000. Fellows also receive a complimentary one-year AMS membership.
Karin Melnick was born and raised in Marin County, California. She attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2006 under the direction of Benson Farb. With a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, she went to Yale University as a Gibbs Assistant Professor. She received a Junior Research Fellowship from the Erwin Schroedinger Institute in spring 2009. She has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland since fall 2009.
Melnick's research is on differential-geometric aspects of rigidity. She studies the relationship between algebraic or dynamical properties of the group of automorphisms of a geometric structure on a manifold M and the geometry and topology of M. Her work has focused on manifolds with Lorentzian metrics, conformal pseudo-Riemannian structures, and parabolic geometries in general.
Find out more about AMS and AMS-affiliated prizes at http://www.ams.org/profession/prizes-awards/prizes.
Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 30,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life.