Melanie Wood facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Melanie Wood
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Wood in 2019
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| Born | 1981 (age 43–44) Indianapolis, Indiana
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Duke University Trinity College, Cambridge Princeton University |
| Awards | Morgan Prize (2004) NSF CAREER Award (2017) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Stanford University University of Wisconsin University of California, Berkeley Harvard University |
| Thesis | Moduli spaces for rings and ideals (2009) |
| Doctoral advisor | Manjul Bhargava |
Melanie Matchett Wood (born 1981) is an amazing American mathematician. She is a Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. Melanie made history as the first girl to join the U.S. team for the International Mathematical Olympiad. This is a super tough math competition for students from all over the world.
She earned her PhD in 2009 from Princeton University. Before working at Harvard, she taught at other big universities. These included UC Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin, and Stanford University. Melanie studies a special part of math called number theory. She looks at patterns and properties of numbers.
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Melanie's Early Life
Melanie Wood was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her parents, Sherry Eggers and Archie Wood, were both middle school teachers. Her dad, who taught math, sadly passed away when Melanie was very young.
High School Achievements
When Melanie was in high school, she went to Park Tudor School in Indianapolis. At just 16 years old, she became the first American girl to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She won silver medals in this competition in both 1998 and 1999. Besides being a math whiz, Melanie was also a cheerleader and worked on her school's newspaper.
Awards and Recognition
Melanie Wood has won many important awards for her math work.
Major Prizes and Fellowships
- In 2002, she received the Alice T. Schafer Prize. This award is given by the Association for Women in Mathematics.
- In 2003, Melanie graduated from Duke University. She earned several top scholarships, like the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She also became the first American woman to be named a Putnam Fellow in 2002. This is a huge honor in college math.
- She studied at Cambridge University in England during 2003 and 2004.
- In 2004, she won the Morgan Prize. This award is for outstanding math research by undergraduate students. Melanie was the first woman ever to win it.
- In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. This means she is recognized as a leading mathematician.
- She received an NSF CAREER Award in 2017. This award helps young scientists with their research.
- In 2018, she won the AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory. This prize is also from the Association for Women in Mathematics.
- From 2019 to 2021, Melanie was a member of the American Mathematical Society Council. This group helps guide the AMS.
- In 2021, she received the NSF Alan T. Waterman Award. This is a very high honor for young scientists and engineers in the U.S.
- In 2022, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. This is often called a "genius grant." It gives talented people money to continue their important work.
Selected Publications
Melanie Wood has written many important papers in mathematics. Here are a few examples:
- Wood, Melanie (2019). "Nonabelian Cohen-Lenstra moments." This paper was published in the Duke Math. J..
- Vakil, Ravi; Wood, Melanie (2015). "Discriminants in the Grothendieck ring." This work also appeared in the Duke Math. J..
- Wood, Melanie (2010). "On the probabilities of local behaviors in abelian field extensions." This paper was published in Compos. Math..
