Mirzakhani Fellowships Awarded

Stanford | Mathematics: School of Humanities & Sciences
“Hannah Larson and Isabel Vogt Awarded Mirzakhani Fellowships”

The Stanford Mathematics Department is pleased to announce that Hannah Larson is awarded the Maryam Mirzakhani Graduate Fellowship, and Isabel Vogt is awarded the Maryam Mirzakhani Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Mirzakhani Fellowships Awarded were established in memory of our former colleague, Professor Maryam Mirzakhani, allowing us to attract outstanding students, developing the next generation of world leaders in mathematics.

Hannah Larson is a Ph.D. student at Stanford working in algebraic geometry with Ravi Vakil. In particular, she is excited by intersection theory and its power to describe geometric objects. Hannah first became interested in algebraic geometry as an undergraduate at Harvard, where she worked with Joe Harris. Her senior thesis studied normal bundles of lines on hypersurfaces, which provide a natural family of vector bundles on rational curves. Her current research concerns vector bundles on families of rational curves more generally and the varieties that characterize how splitting types change. Hannah also enjoys working as an instructor for the Stanford Elementary Math Circle. Hannah has previously received several awards and recognitions, including the Intel STS Award, the Davidson Fellowship, the Alice Schaffer Award, and the Hertz Fellowship. The Mirzakhani Graduate Fellowship is funded by a generous endowment from Dr. Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard and Anousheh Ansari.

Isabel Vogt will receive her PhD this summer from MIT, and has been visiting Stanford this academic year. Her current research interests are in the middle of the spectrum from algebraic geometry to number theory, where techniques and motivation from one field may shed light on problems in another. In graduate school she worked with Bjorn Poonen and Joe Harris and focused on problems in the arithmetic and geometry of algebraic curves, including Brill–Noether theory, low degree points on curves, and explicit computations with Galois representations of elliptic curves. Outside of research, Isabel enjoys organizing workshops and conferences, including an American Mathematical Society Mathematics Research Community on “Explicit methods in arithmetic geometry in characteristic p” in June 2019 and a collaborative research conference for women in algebraic geometry at ICERM in summer 2020. Isabel has previously received several awards and recognitions, including the Goldwater Scholarship, the Friends of Harvard Math Thesis Prize, the Ida Green Graduate Fellowship, and the Lusztig PRIMES Mentorship Award. The Mirzakhani Postdoctoral Fellowship is made possible by the generous donation from Dr. Jun Ye and Caren Wang.

Maryam Mirzakhani joined Stanford as a Professor of Mathematics in 2009. She made dramatic advances in our understanding of the geometry and dynamics of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces. Mirzakhani received the 2013 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics, the Clay Research Award in 2014 and the Fields Medal in 2014. She was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Maryam’s passion for mathematics and pursuing deep, challenging questions will continue to inspire future generations of mathematicians, and Stanford Mathematics is proud to continue her legacy.

In May 2021, Dr. Yassini received a heartfelt note of appreciation along with the School of Humanities and Sciences Fellowship Report which includes letters of gratitude from students who benefit from The Maryam Mirzakhani Graduate Fellowship.

Dean Debra Satz wrote, “Supporting our students through fellowships such as yours ensures that they can thrive. I am truly grateful for your generosity. “

Included in the report are a number of thank you notes from recipients including this excerpt from Ipsita Datta, “I am writing to express my gratitude for your generous support through the Maryam Mirzakhani Graduate Fellowship, which I am a recipient of this year. Your generosity has really touched me and helped me in these turbulent times to make progress in my research. “

Please read the full report with notes of thanks here.