Aaron Pixton

Aaron Pixton
Pixton at the Workshop Moduli Spaces in Algebraic Geometry, Oberwolfach 2013
Born	(1986-01-13) January 13, 1986 (age 39) Binghamton, New York, U.S.
Alma mater	Princeton University (AB, PhD)
Awards	Morgan Prize (2009) Putnam Fellow (2004, 2005, 2007)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Harvard University Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Michigan
Thesis	The tautological ring of the moduli space of curves (2013)
Doctoral advisor	Rahul Pandharipande

Aaron C. Pixton (born January 13, 1986) is an American mathematician at the University of Michigan. He works in enumerative geometry, and is also known for his chess playing, where he is a FIDE Master.

Early life and education

Pixton was born in Binghamton, New York; his father, Dennis Pixton, is a retired professor of mathematics at Binghamton University. He grew up in Vestal, New York. While a student at Vestal Senior High School, he scored a perfect score on the American Mathematics Competition three times from 2002 to 2004.[1] He went on to the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2003 and 2004 to win consecutive gold medals.[2]

He received a Bachelor of Arts in 2008 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 2013, both from Princeton University.[3]

While an undergraduate at Princeton University, Pixton was a three-time Putnam Fellow.[4] For his research conducted as an undergraduate, he was awarded the 2009 Morgan Prize.[5] In 2008, he received a Churchill Scholarship to the University of Cambridge.[6] Pixton received his Ph.D. in 2013 from Princeton under the supervision of Rahul Pandharipande; his dissertation was The tautological ring of the moduli space of curves.[7][8]

Career

Pixton was appointed as a Clay Research Fellow for a term of five years beginning in 2013.[9] After two years as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, he became an assistant professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015.[10] In 2017, he received a Sloan Research Fellowship.[11] In 2020, he moved to the University of Michigan as an assistant professor.

Chess

Pixton is also a former child prodigy in chess. He was the 2001 U.S. Cadet Champion[12] and the 2002 US Junior Chess Champion,[13][14] and had a win against the former US Champion Joel Benjamin in 2003.[15]

Selected publications

• Pandharipande, Rahul; Pixton, Aaron; Zvonkine, Dimitri (2015), "Relations on ${\displaystyle {\overline {\mathcal {M}}}_{g,n}}$ via 3-spin structures", Journal of the American Mathematical Society, 28 (1): 279–309, doi:10.1090/S0894-0347-2014-00808-0, MR 3264769
• Janda, Felix; Pandharipande, Rahul; Pixton, Aaron; Zvonkine, Dimitri (2017), "Double ramification cycles on the moduli spaces of curves", Publications Mathématiques de l'IHÉS, 125: 221–266, arXiv:1602.04705, doi:10.1007/s10240-017-0088-x, MR 3668650, S2CID 78089766
• Pandharipande, Rahul; Pixton, Aaron (2017), "Gromov–Witten/Pairs correspondence for the quintic 3-fold", Journal of the American Mathematical Society, 30 (2): 389–449, arXiv:1206.5490, doi:10.1090/jams/858, MR 3600040, S2CID 117481664
• Oberdieck, Georg; Pixton, Aaron (2018), "Holomorphic anomaly equations and the Igusa cusp form conjecture", Inventiones Mathematicae, 213 (2): 507–587, arXiv:1706.10100, Bibcode:2018InMat.213..507O, doi:10.1007/s00222-018-0794-0, MR 3827207, S2CID 3616255

References

1. "2002 AMC 10A/B & AMC 12A/B Perfect Papers". University of Nebraska–Lincoln. May 24, 2002. Archived from the original on August 23, 2006. Retrieved May 24, 2006.; "2003 - AMC 10 & 12, A&B Perfect Papers". University of Nebraska–Lincoln. March 30, 2004. Archived from the original on August 23, 2006. Retrieved May 24, 2006.; "2004 - AMC 10 & 12, A&B Perfect Papers". University of Nebraska–Lincoln. June 17, 2004. Archived from the original on April 7, 2006. Retrieved May 24, 2006.
2. "2003 IMO USA Team". University of Nebraska–Lincoln. September 24, 2003. Archived from the original on May 16, 2006. Retrieved May 24, 2006.; "2004 IMO USA Team". University of Nebraska–Lincoln. July 28, 2004. Archived from the original on April 30, 2006. Retrieved May 24, 2006.; Aaron Pixton's results at International Mathematical Olympiad; IMO 2004 US Team Results in Athens, Greece
3. "Aaron Pixton | U-M LSA Mathematics". lsa.umich.edu. Archived from the original on December 3, 2022. Retrieved December 3, 2022.
4. "Putnam Competition Individual and Team Winners". Mathematical Association of America. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
5. "2009 Morgan Prize" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 56 (4): 502–503, April 2009
6. Students win Churchill Scholarships
7. Aaron Pixton at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
8. Pixton, Aaron (April 24, 2013). "The tautological ring of the moduli space of curves" (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 3, 2022. Retrieved December 3, 2022.
9. "Aaron Pixton". Clay Mathematics Institute. 2013.
10. Five professors join the School of Science this fall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September 25, 2015
11. 2017 Sloan Research Fellows, American Mathematical Society, March 8, 2017
12. Peters, Jack (August 10, 2001), "Young and Old Strive to Master the Intricacies of Ancient Game", Los Angeles Times
13. "Revived D.C. Open to honor Shapiro", The Washington Times, August 3, 2002
14. US Junior Open Tournament Bulletin; U. S. Junior Invitational Championships-- Final Standings
15. Benjamin, Joel (2018), Better Thinking, Better Chess: How a Grandmaster Finds his Moves, New In Chess, Game 19, pp. 49–51, ISBN 9789056918088

External links

• Home page at MIT
• "USAMO Official Portraits 1990 – Present".
• Aaron Pixton's results at International Mathematical Olympiad
• Aaron Pixton rating card at FIDE