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Miranda Cheng

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Miranda Chih-Ning Cheng (Chinese: 程之寧; born 6 June 1979, Taipei)[1] is a Taiwanese-born and Dutch-educated mathematician and theoretical physicist who works as an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam.[2] She is known for formulating the umbral moonshine conjectures[3][4] and for her work on the connections between K3 surfaces and string theory.[3]

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.[3]

After graduating from the Department of Physics at National Taiwan University in 2001[5][6], 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.[2] She completed her Ph.D. in 2008 from the University of Amsterdam under the joint supervision of Erik Verlinde and Kostas Skenderis.[2][7] 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.[2]

References

  1. ^ C. Cheng, 1979 at the University of Amsterdam Album Academicum.
  2. ^ a b c d Curriculum vitae, retrieved 2016-08-02.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/ntu.adm.academic-affs/5CG9_IjaLKQ
  6. ^ http://www.science.ntu.edu.tw/award-2.php
  7. ^ Miranda Cheng at the Mathematics Genealogy Project