Fan Chung facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fan Chung
|
|
|---|---|
| 金芳蓉 | |
Fan Chung in 1987
|
|
| Born | October 9, 1949 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | National Taiwan University (BS) University of Pennsylvania (MS, PhD) |
| Known for | Spectral graph theory extremal graph theory Random graphs |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | University of Pennsylvania University of California, San Diego |
| Doctoral advisor | Herbert Wilf |
| Doctoral students | Steve Butler Sinan Aksoy Josh Tobin Olivia Simpson Mark Kempton Franklin Kenter Jake Hughes Mary Radcliffe Wenbo Zhao Alexander Tsiatas Shoaib Jamall Paul Horn Reid Andersen Ross Richardson Joshua Cooper Robert Ellis Lincoln Linyuan Lu Chao Yang |
Fan-Rong King Chung Graham (Chinese: 金芳蓉; pinyin: Jīn Fāngróng; born October 9, 1949), known as Fan Chung, is an American mathematician. She was born in Taiwan. She mostly works with graph theory. This is a field of math that studies networks and connections.
Her main areas are spectral graph theory, extremal graph theory, and random graphs. She helps us understand how large networks work. These include things like the internet.
Since 1998, Fan Chung has been a special professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She earned her highest degree (Ph.D.) in 1974. This was from the University of Pennsylvania. Before becoming a professor, she worked at famous places like Bell Laboratories. She was the first woman to become a permanent math professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She also helps edit many math journals. In 2024, she joined the United States National Academy of Sciences. This is a very high honor for scientists.
Contents
Fan Chung's Early Life and Education
Fan Chung was born on October 9, 1949, in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Her father was an engineer. He helped her become interested in math. She especially liked combinatorics in high school. This is a part of math about counting and arranging things.
After high school, Chung went to National Taiwan University. She studied math there. Many women mathematicians were studying there too. This encouraged her to continue her math journey.
After getting her first degree, Chung moved to the University of Pennsylvania. She wanted to study math even more. She did very well on an important exam there. This caught the eye of Herbert Wilf, who became her professor. He suggested she study Ramsey theory. This is about finding patterns in large sets of data.
In just one week, she found new ways to prove old math ideas. Her professor was very impressed. He said she had already done most of her Ph.D. work.
Chung earned her Master's degree in 1972. Two years later, she got her Ph.D. She was already married and had her first child. That same year, she started working at Bell Laboratories. This was a great chance to work with other smart mathematicians. She wrote many important math papers there. She also wrote many papers with Ronald Graham.
Working at Bell Laboratories
In 1974, Fan Chung joined Bell Laboratories. She worked in the math department. She worked with many top mathematicians there.
In 1975, she published her first paper with Ronald Graham. It was about Ramsey theory.
In 1983, the Bell Telephone Company changed. Her boss asked her to become a research manager. She led a team of mathematicians. She once said she wanted people to admire her for her math, not just her power as a manager.
In 1990, she received a special fellowship. This allowed her to spend time studying at Harvard University.
Later Career and Impact
After 20 years at Bell Laboratories, Chung decided to become a math professor. She went back to the University of Pennsylvania. In 1998, she became a special professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Fan Chung has used her math skills to connect different areas of science. She explained that graph theory helps us understand huge amounts of information. For example, Google's search engine works using the "Web graph." This graph connects all web pages. There are also graphs for biology, social networks (like emails), and physical networks. She believes graph theory is very important in our "Information Age."
In 2017, a film called Girls who fell in love with Math was made about her life. In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Personal Life and Family
Fan Chung has two children. Her first child was born while she was still a student.
Her first marriage ended in 1982. While working at Bell Laboratories, she met Ronald Graham. They became good friends and wrote many math papers together. They got married in 1983. She was married to him until he passed away in 2020.
Fan Chung said that she and Ronald Graham understood each other well. They both worked in the same math areas. This helped them work together and make good progress.
Both Chung and Graham were close friends with another famous mathematician, Paul Erdős. They both wrote many papers with him. Fan Chung wrote 13 papers with Erdős. This means they both have an Erdős number of one. This is a way to show how connected mathematicians are to Erdős. In 1998, Chung and Graham wrote a book together called Erdős on Graphs.
Fan Chung's Research Areas
Fan Chung has written over 200 research papers and three books. Here are her books:
- Erdős on Graphs: His Legacy of Unsolved Problems (with Ron Graham), 1998
- Spectral Graph Theory, 1997
- Complex Graphs and Networks (with Linyuan Lu), 2006
Understanding Spectral Graph Theory
One of Fan Chung's most important contributions is to spectral graph theory. This area of math uses tools from algebra to study graphs. It helps us understand the shapes and connections within graphs. Her work helped create a new way to look at this field.
In 1997, the American Mathematical Society published her book Spectral Graph Theory. This book is now used as a standard textbook in many universities. It helps students learn about this important area of math.
Exploring Network Science
Fan Chung's work on random graph models has changed how we understand network science. Many real-world networks, like the internet, follow a special pattern called a power law distribution. This means a few parts of the network have many connections, while most parts have only a few.
Chung helped create the "Chung-Lu model." This model helps scientists study random graphs with different connection patterns. Her work gives a strong way to analyze large, complex networks. It is often used to compare new ways of understanding networks.
In 2006, Fan Chung and Linyuan Lu wrote the book Complex Graphs and Networks. This book explains how to use math tools to study real-world information networks.
Awards and Honors
Fan Chung has received many awards for her work:
- Carl B. Allendoerfer Award (1990)
- Invited to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians (1994)
- Noether Lecturer (2009)
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998)
- Fellow, American Mathematical Society (2013)
- Fellow, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2015)
- Academician, Academia Sinica (2016)
- Euler Medal (2017)
- She is featured in a deck of playing cards about famous women mathematicians.
- Elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences (2024)
- Revelle Medal for great service to UCSD (2024)
