Sylvie Corteel facts for kids

Sylvie Corteel is a French mathematician. She works at important places like the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (a big research center in France) and universities such as Paris Diderot University and the University of California, Berkeley. She even used to be in charge of a math magazine called the Journal of Combinatorial Theory.

Sylvie studies a special area of math called combinatorics. This field is all about counting and arranging things. She looks at things like permutations (different ways to order items), Young tableaux (special ways to arrange numbers in boxes), and integer partitions (ways to break down a number into smaller whole numbers).

Sylvie's Path in Math

Sylvie Corteel started her journey in math by first getting an engineering degree in 1996 from the University of Technology of Compiègne in France. After that, she traveled to the United States.

Studying in the USA

In 1997, Sylvie earned a master's degree from North Carolina State University. There, she worked with another mathematician named Carla Savage.

Earning Advanced Degrees

Sylvie continued her studies and earned her Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of Paris-Sud. A Ph.D. is a very high academic degree. Later, in 2010, she earned a "habilitation" from Paris Diderot University. This is another important qualification in the French university system.

Her Career as a Researcher

From 2000 to 2005, Sylvie worked at the Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University. During this time, she also spent a year doing research in Canada at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2001.

In 2005, she moved to the University of Paris-Sud. Then, in 2009, she joined Paris Diderot University. By 2010, she became a director of research there, leading important math projects.

Since 2017, Sylvie has been a special visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the USA. She was also named a Simons Professor at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute for 2017-2018.

What Sylvie Studies

Sylvie Corteel's main area of study is combinatorics. This part of math helps us understand how to count and arrange different objects or numbers.

Combinatorics and Patterns

She looks at things like:

• Permutations: These are different ways to order a set of items. For example, if you have three letters A, B, C, the permutations are ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA.
• Young Tableaux: These are special ways to arrange numbers in a grid of boxes. They look a bit like stairs or steps.
• Integer Partitions: This is about finding all the different ways to write a number as a sum of smaller whole numbers. For example, the number 4 can be partitioned as 4, 3+1, 2+2, 2+1+1, and 1+1+1+1.

New Discoveries

In 2018, Sylvie worked with two other mathematicians, O. Mandelshtam and L. Williams. Together, they found a new way to describe special math objects called Macdonald polynomials. They used a method from combinatorics that involves an "exclusion process." This means they looked at how certain arrangements are formed by excluding or not allowing specific things to happen.