Mathematics Faculty Fellows

The Mathematics Faculty Fellowships are intended for research faculty below the rank of professor, or professors who are less than 15 years past the Ph.D., and recognize the importance and impact of research support for these colleagues. The Department has selected both Sara Billey and John Palmieri to be the inaugural recipients of this award.

Sara Billey

Sara Billey received her Ph.D. from UC San Diego in 1994 and received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2000 as an assistant professor at MIT. She joined the Department of Mathematics at UW in 2003. Her area of research is the combinatorics of structures arising in algebra, algebraic geometry, and the theory of Lie groups. She is an enthusiastic user of computers in her research, particularly for obtaining data for conjectures and for verifying proofs. She has enhanced our graduate program through special lectures and recruiting events and has directed five undergraduate research projects.

John Palmieri

John Palmieri received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1991, under the direction of our former colleague Haynes Miller, and joined the Department of Mathematics at UW in 1999. His research is in the field of algebraic topology. Traditionally this is the study of topological and geometric problems by algebraic methods, but much of Palmieri’s work turns the tables by using techniques from topology to illuminate problems in algebra. Palmieri is also active in promoting the development of writing skills as an important component of advanced mathematics courses.