Jenny Harrison facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Jenny Harrison
Born	Atlanta, Georgia, US
Education	University of Alabama (BA) University of Warwick (PhD)
Known for	Contributions to geometric analysis, chainlets
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor	Christopher Zeeman

Jenny Harrison is a brilliant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her important work in an area of math called geometric analysis. This field combines ideas from geometry (the study of shapes and spaces) and calculus (the study of change).

Jenny Harrison's Journey in Math

Early Life and Studies

Jenny Harrison grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the United States. After finishing her studies at the University of Alabama, she won a special award called a Marshall Scholarship. This scholarship helped her go to graduate school in England, at the University of Warwick.

In 1975, she earned her PhD, which is the highest university degree. Her main teacher and guide during her PhD was a famous mathematician named Christopher Zeeman. After that, she continued her research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She also became a special research fellow at Berkeley.

Teaching and Research Positions

From 1978 to 1981, Jenny Harrison taught at the University of Oxford in England, at a college called Somerville College. Then, she returned to Berkeley as an assistant professor.

Later, there was a disagreement about her getting a permanent teaching position (called 'tenure') at Berkeley. Jenny Harrison believed this was unfair. After a careful review of her amazing work by a group of expert mathematicians and scientists, they all agreed that she should become a full professor. This shows how important it is to stand up for fairness!

What Jenny Harrison Studies

Geometric Analysis and New Ideas

Jenny Harrison is a specialist in geometric analysis. This area of math looks at how algebra, geometry, and geometric measure theory connect. She and her helpers created a new way to understand special math functions called "differential chains."

This new theory helps connect very small (infinitesimal) calculations with the classic way we understand smooth, continuous shapes. It's like finding a way to use the same math tools for many different kinds of surfaces.

Solving Real-World Math Puzzles

Her methods can be used for many things, like:

• Understanding soap films (the thin layers of soap bubbles).
• Studying fractals, which are complex patterns that repeat themselves.
• Looking at how charged particles behave.
• Analyzing "Whitney stratified spaces," which are shapes made of different smooth pieces.

This means her work helps put all these different types of surfaces on the same level for mathematical study. Her discoveries have also made important math rules, like the theorems of Stokes, Gauss, and Green, simpler and more general.

Plateau's Problem and Soap Films

One of her big achievements is her work on Plateau's problem. This problem asks how to find the shape of the smallest surface that stretches across a given boundary, like a soap film stretching across a wire frame.

Jenny Harrison found a way to solve this problem for many different kinds of boundaries. Her solution is the first to include all sorts of soap films found in nature. This includes films that can't be easily oriented (like a Mobius strip) and those with "triple junctions" where three films meet. Her work builds on earlier solutions by other famous mathematicians.

She first learned about Plateau's problem when she was a student at the University of Warwick. Later, she found a special example that challenged an idea called the Seifert conjecture. In 1983, she suggested that there could be a general theory connecting these ideas. This led to the development of her theory of differential chains.

Jenny Harrison and her colleague Harrison Pugh proved that the math space of differential chains has a special "universal property." They used this theory to give the first complete solution to Plateau's problem, even explaining how soap films become smooth.

Awards and Honors

Jenny Harrison has received many important awards and fellowships for her groundbreaking work:

• Foundational Questions Institute, research award, 2009
• Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, Miller Professor, 2007
• Rockefeller University, Visiting Research Professor, 1996–97
• Yale University, National Science Foundation, Visiting Scholar, 1989–90
• Oxford University, CUF Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow, Somerville College, 1978–81
• Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, Miller Fellow, 1977–78
• Institute for Advanced Study, Visiting Fellow, Princeton, 1975–76

See also

• In Spanish: Jenny Harrison para niños