Chuu-Lian Terng facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Chuu-Lian Terng
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| 滕楚蓮 | |
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Terng in 2010
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| Nationality | Taiwanese-American |
| Education | National Taiwan University (BS) Brandeis University (PhD) |
| Occupation | Mathematician |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Spouse(s) | Richard Palais |
Chuu-Lian Terng is a famous mathematician from Taiwan and America. She studies special areas of math called differential geometry and integrable systems. This means she looks at shapes, spaces, and how things change in math. She is especially interested in how certain math equations relate to shapes.
Contents
Becoming a Mathematician
Chuu-Lian Terng earned her first degree from National Taiwan University in 1971. Later, she got her PhD from Brandeis University in 1976. Her teacher was Richard Palais, whom she later married.
Teaching and Research
She taught at Northeastern University for many years. Before that, she worked at other well-known places. These included the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University. She also spent time at the Institute for Advanced Study and the Max-Planck Institute in Germany. Today, she is a professor emerita at the University of California at Irvine. This means she is a retired professor who still keeps her title.
Helping Women in Math
Chuu-Lian Terng has been very active in the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). This group helps and supports women who study math. She was even the president of AWM from 1995 to 1997. She also helped organize important math conferences.
Sharing Math Knowledge
She has also worked on the editorial boards of many math journals. These journals publish new math discoveries. Her role was to help decide which new research papers were good enough to be published. This helps share new math ideas with everyone.
Special Recognition
In 1999, Chuu-Lian Terng was chosen as the AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer. This is a special honor for mathematicians. Her work was praised for helping us understand shapes and equations better.
Her Research Explained Simply
Her early work looked at how different math ideas connect. Then, she became interested in "submanifolds." These are like smaller shapes that exist inside bigger shapes. She found new ways to describe special kinds of these shapes. She also used them to understand certain math problems.
More recently, Terng and another mathematician, Karen Uhlenbeck, found a new way to solve complex math equations. They showed how these equations have hidden patterns. She also helped write a book about shapes in math.
Awards and Honors
Chuu-Lian Terng has received many important awards for her work:
- Sloan Fellowship in 1980.
- Humboldt Senior Scientist Award in 1997.
- AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer in 1999.
- Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012.
- Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 2018. She was part of the first group to receive this honor.
A "Miracle" in Math
Chuu-Lian Terng is one of six women mathematicians from National Taiwan University. A famous mathematician, Shiing-Shen Chern, called them "a miracle in Chinese history." He said they were "the glory of the Chinese people." This shows how important their contributions to math are.
