Math Bio @ Duke

Ingrid Daubechies joins Duke Math faculty

Ingrid Daubechies conducting research in Madagascar

Ingrid Daubechies joined the Mathematics Department as James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics in Spring, 2011. Daubechies, one of the world's leading mathematicians, is a member of the United States' National Academy of Sciences, was a MacArthur Fellow, and is President of the International Mathematical Union.

Professor Daubechies was born and educated in Belgium. She moved to the United States in 1987 where she first worked for Bell Laboratories and then at Princeton University where she was full Professor of Mathematics from 1993-2011. She is best known for her discovery and mathematical analysis of compactly supported wavelets, which are used in image compression, for example in JPEG 2000 for both both lossless and lossy compression. She was awarded the Steele Prize for mathematical exposition in 1994 for her book, Ten Lectures on Wavelets.

One focus of Daubechies' current research is the development of analytic and geometric tools for the comparison of surfaces. Her new approach, developed with Yaron Lipmon [1] uses conformal mapping to define a metric between surfaces. Comparison of surfaces plays a central role in many scientific disciplines and in the construction of video animations, and it is also a crucial step in many medical and biological applications. In an earlier collaboration, she worked with paleontologists to develop a quantitative method to characterize the complexity of molar tooth surfaces, in an effort to reconstruct the diet of various extinct taxa [2].

A particular interest of Professor Daubechies is the improvement of secondary mathematics education in the US and worldwide, and the stimulation of mathematics, science and technology in developing countries. In 2009 she spent part of her sabbatical in Madagascar; she continues to work with Malagasy mathematicians and scientists towards fostering a richer and more stimulating environment for students interested in developing a career in research and higher education.

At Duke in Fall 2011, Professor Daubechies will teach Math 103.08, Multivariable Calculus, and Math 187, Introduction to Mathematical Logic.

[1] Y. Lipman, I. Daubechies, Conformal Wasserstein distances: Comparing Surfaces in Polynomial Time, Advances in Mathematics, 227 (2011): 1047-1077.

[2] J. M. Bunn, D. M. Boyer, Y. Lipman, E. M. St. Clair, J. Jernvall, I. Daubechies, Comparing Dirichlet normal surface energy of tooth crowns, a new technique of molar shape quantification for dietary inference, with previous methods in isolation and in combination, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 145 (2011): 247-261.