Best of CASE District II Award
 

Institution: Johns Hopkins University

Title of entry: The Mind Riehls

About this entry: Mathematician Emily Riehl is amazing, and we have a lot of amazing here. She is an associate professor in the School of Arts and Sciences who has established herself at the forefront of theories that are galvanizing higher mathematics: category theory and infinity category theory and homotopy type theory. She's recently written a definitive text on the subject of category theory and won an $250000 President's Frontier Award for her work. In a sense, she's a mathematician for mathematicians. She also plays several stringed instruments, Australian rules football and runs ultra marathons for fun. In the math world, she's a rock star whose star is only rising. What is category theory you ask? Well, read on, but in short it formalizes mathematical structure and tries to make sense of VERY abstract numbers and objects. Just try to get into a conversation with her about 0. Good luck.