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May 31, 2016

Emmy Murphy wins the AWM - Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) will present the second AWM-Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry to Emmy Murphy, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta, GA in January 2017. Established in 2013, the AWM-Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize recognizes exceptional research in topology/geometry by a woman early in her career. The award is made possible by a generous contribution from Joan and Joseph Birman. The biennial presentation of this prize serves to highlight to the community outstanding contributions by women in the fields of topology and geometry and to advance the careers of the prize recipients. The 2017 AWM - Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry is awarded to Emmy Murphy for major breakthroughs in symplectic geometry. She has developed new techniques for the study of symplectic and contact structures on manifolds, uncovering a startling degree of flexibility in a branch of geometry that is ordinarily distinguished by rigidity. As a result, some geometric problems can now be reduced to

homotopy theory; for example Murphy’s methods have yielded answers to long-standing questions concerning the existence of contact structures on high-dimensional manifolds. She has shown great creativity in the delicate work of inventing powerful new h-principle techniques. She has also masterfully combined these new tools with other tools, such as the method of pseudoholomorphic curves, to explore the boundary between flexibility and rigidity. Murphy earned a BS in mathematics from the University of Nevada, Reno and a PhD in mathematics from Stanford University. She started as a C. L. E. Moore instructor at MIT immediately after receiving her PhD and two years later was hired as an assistant professor at MIT. Murphy has received numerous awards and recognitions including an Académie Royale de Belgique prize for an original contribution to the existence of contact structures and a Sloan Research Fellowship. Currently her research is supported by an NSF Research grant. Murphy is a highly original thinker, and leading geometers will not be surprised if she goes on to make breakthroughs in very different areas of mathematics.

The 2017 Joint Mathematics Meetings will be held January 4 –7 in Atlanta, GA. For further information on the AWM-Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize, including the previous winner, please visit www.awm-math.org.

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