Aimee Johnson facts for kids
Aimee Sue Anastasia Johnson is an American mathematician. She studies dynamical systems, which is a field of math that looks at how things change over time. She is a professor of mathematics at Swarthmore College. She also won a special honor called the George Pólya Award and helped write a book titled Discovering Discrete Dynamical Systems.
Her School Days
Aimee Johnson graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984. She then continued her studies and earned her Ph.D. in 1990. This higher degree was from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her Ph.D. project was about how certain patterns stay the same on a circle.
What She Studies
Aimee Johnson is well-known for her work in dynamical systems. She explored a big question from another mathematician, Hillel Furstenberg. This question was about how to sort out patterns that stay the same when you multiply numbers in a special way.
Awards and Books
In 1998, Aimee Johnson and Kathleen Madden won the George Pólya Award. They earned this award for their paper about "aperiodic tiling." Imagine trying to cover a floor with tiles, but the pattern never repeats itself. That's what aperiodic tiling is about! Their paper helped people understand these unique patterns.
Later, in 2017, Johnson, Madden, and Ayşe Şahin wrote a textbook together. It's called Discovering Discrete Dynamical Systems. This book helps students learn about how systems change step-by-step. She also helped edit another book about mathematics called Ergodic Theory, Dynamical Systems, and the Continuing Influence of John C. Oxtoby.
