Ruth I. Michler Prize 2013-2014

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and Cornell University are pleased to announce that Megumi Harada, McMaster University, Canada, will receive the 2013-14 Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize. The Michler Prize grants a mid-career woman in academia a residential fellowship in the Cornell University mathematics department without teaching obligations. This pioneering venture was established through a very generous donation from the Michler family and the efforts of many people at AWM and Cornell.

Megumi Harada was selected to receive the Michler Prize because of her wide range of mathematical talents and her many connections with mathematics faculty at Cornell. In 1996 she earned an A.B. from Harvard University, majoring in mathematics. Harada received her Ph.D. in mathematics from University of California Berkeley in 2003. She studied equivariant symplectic geometry and equivariant topology under the direction of Allen Knutson. Before coming to McMaster University in 2006, where she is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Harada spent three years as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Toronto. She has held research visiting positions at Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics, Mathematical Science Research Institute and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. Harada’s research involves the interface of symplectic geometry, algebraic geometry, geometric representation theory and algebraic combinatorics. In particular she studies classes of varieties such as toric varieties, Kac- Moody flag varieties G/P, and Hessenber varieties. Her work is partially funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. At Cornell, Harada plans to work with her longterm collaborators Reyer Sjamar on divided difference operators in equivariant K-theory and a K-theoretic Martin theorem and Tara Holm on the equivariant K-theory of orbifold toric varieties.

Allen Knutson, her former Ph.D. supervisor, is a Cornell faculty member and is active in nearly every research area of interest to Harada, most particularly in relation to her recent work with Kiumars Kaveh on Okounkov bodies, toric degenerations, and integrable systems. Harada looks forward to many conversations and potential collaborations with Knutson and his graduate students. She is also expects fruitful interactions with Mike Stillman and Irena Peeva.