Mai Gehrke facts for kids
Mai Gehrke, born on May 10, 1964, is a talented Danish mathematician. She studies special mathematical structures called lattices. These structures help us understand how things are organized and related. Mai Gehrke uses her knowledge of lattices in areas like mathematical logic, which is about how we reason with numbers, and theoretical computer science, which explores the basic ideas behind computers.
She works as a research director for the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). This is a big organization in France that supports scientific research. She is connected with a lab called Laboratoire J. A. Dieudonné (LJAD) at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis.
Mai Gehrke's Early Life and Learning
Mai Gehrke had an interesting start to her education. When she was a child, she went to a French school in Algiers. The math lessons there were very advanced and focused on abstract ideas, meaning they dealt with concepts rather than practical examples.
Later, as a high school student in Denmark, she took a break from math. She spent a year as an exchange student in Houston, where she focused on studying painting. However, a Polish math teacher helped her rediscover her love for mathematics. This teacher taught her a type of math called point-set topology, which is about shapes and spaces, using a special teaching method called the Moore method. This method encourages students to discover mathematical ideas on their own.
Becoming a Doctor of Mathematics
Mai Gehrke continued her studies and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 1987. A Ph.D. is the highest university degree you can get. Her main research project, called a dissertation, was about the "Order Structure of Stone Spaces and the TD-axiom." Her professor, Klaus Hermann Kaiser, guided her through this important work.
Mai Gehrke's Professional Journey
After finishing her Ph.D., Mai Gehrke did more research at Vanderbilt University. This is called postdoctoral study. In 1990, she started working as a professor at New Mexico State University.
She later moved to Europe in 2007 to work at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Then, in 2011, she joined the CNRS in France. From 2011 to 2017, she worked with a computer science lab called LIAFA at Paris Diderot University. In 2017, she moved to the LJAD lab in Sophia Antipolis, where she continues her important research today.
