Lillian Pierce facts for kids
Lillian Beatrix Pierce is a brilliant mathematician. She studies how numbers work and how different kinds of patterns in math connect. She is a professor of mathematics at Duke University.
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About Lillian Pierce
Lillian Pierce was taught at home in Fallbrook, California. She started playing the violin when she was only four years old. By the time she was 11, she was already playing the violin professionally!
As a teenager, she also took classes at a local college called a community college. She took so many classes that some universities thought she had already finished her first year of college.
She went to Princeton University to study math. At first, she thought about becoming a doctor and a scientist. But her teacher, Elias M. Stein, helped her discover her love for pure mathematics. While at Princeton, she also worked as an intern at the National Security Agency.
In 2002, Lillian was the top student at Princeton. She also won a special scholarship called the Rhodes Scholarship. Her brother, Niles Pierce, had also achieved these same honors nine years earlier.
She earned a master's degree from the University of Oxford in 2004. She then returned to Princeton and finished her Ph.D. in mathematics in 2009. Her Ph.D. work was about "Discrete Analogues in Harmonic Analysis."
Her Career in Math
After finishing her Ph.D., Lillian Pierce continued her studies at Oxford and in Germany. In 2014, she became a professor at Duke University. Today, she is a full professor there.
What She Studies
Lillian Pierce is known for her important work in math. She was one of the first mathematicians to figure out how to set limits on the number of special elements in certain math groups. This work helps us understand more about number theory.
Awards and Honors
Lillian Pierce has received many awards for her amazing work:
- In 2018, she won the Sadosky Prize. This award recognized her research that connects different areas of math, like number theory and harmonic analysis.
- In 2019, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. This is a very important award from the President of the United States for young scientists.
- In 2021, she was chosen as a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. This honor is for mathematicians who have made big contributions to the field.
- In 2025, the Association for Women in Mathematics named her to their class of AWM Fellows.
Her Family Life
Lillian Pierce is married to Tobias Overath. He is also a scientist who works at Duke University. He studies the brain.
Images for kids
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Lillian Pierce at Oberwolfach, a math research institute.
