Miranda Cheng
Miranda Chih-Ning Cheng is a Taiwanese-born and Dutch-educated mathematician and theoretical physicist who works as an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam.[1] She is known for formulating the umbral moonshine conjectures[2][3] and for her work on the connections between K3 surfaces and string theory.[2]
Biography
Cheng grew up in Taiwan, where she dropped out of school and left her parents' home to work at a record store and play in a punk rock band at the age of 16. Despite not completing high school, she was able to enter university through a program for gifted science students that she had gone through.[2]
After graduating, she moved to the Netherlands to continue her studies, and earned a master's degree in theoretical physics in 2003 from Utrecht University, under the supervision of Nobel laureate Gerard 't Hooft.[1] She completed her Ph.D. in 2008 from the University of Amsterdam under the joint supervision of Erik Verlinde and Kostas Skenderis.[1][4] After postdoctoral study at Harvard University and working as a researcher at CNRS, she returned to Amsterdam in 2014, with a joint position in the Institute of Physics and Korteweg–de Vries Institute for Mathematics.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d Curriculum vitae, retrieved 2016-08-02.
- ^ a b c Wolchover, Natalie (August 4, 2016), "Moonshine Master Toys With String Theory: The physicist-mathematician Miranda Cheng is working to harness a mysterious connection between string theory, algebra and number theory", Quanta.
- ^ Klarreich, Erica (April 7, 2015), "Mathematicians Chase Moonshine's Shadow: Researchers are on the trail of a mysterious connection between number theory, algebra and string theory", Scientific American
- ^ Miranda Cheng at the Mathematics Genealogy Project