Bryna Kra and Jared Wunsch awarded Simons Fellowship in Mathematics

Northwestern University professors Bryna Kra and Jared Wunsch have been awarded the Simons Fellowship in Mathematics from the Simons Foundation for 2021.

They join a group of 40 mathematicians who can extend a sabbatical from one term to a full academic year in 2021. Fellows can focus solely on research for the long period of time “often necessary for significant advances,” according to the Simons Foundation.

Kra, the Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Mathematics in the Weinberg College of Arts in Sciences, works in ergodic theory and dynamical systems, particularly on problems motivated by combinatorics and number theory. Kra’s research project is titled “Topological and Ergodic Properties of Symbolic Systems.”  

Wunsch, professor of mathematics in Weinberg, focuses on partial differential equations. His research project is titled “Propagation of Singularities, Diffraction and Decay of Waves.”

The Simons Foundation aims to advance discovery in mathematics and the basic sciences. Founded in New York City in 1994, the foundation supports scientific thought through conducting in-house research and making grants to individual investigators through academic institutions.