Star mathematician Sun Song leaves US for China
- The 36-year-old Chinese-born geometer has joined the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics
- It is the latest in a string of high-profile appointments as the institute aims to become a world-class maths centre
After more than a decade of research and teaching in the United States, Chinese-born maths star Sun Song has joined a university in eastern China as a full-time professor.
Before the new appointment, Sun was a professor in the department of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has received multiple awards for his work, such as the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry and the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize.
Sun is the latest in a string of IASM appointments from American universities. Former University of Michigan geometer Ruan Yongbin was recruited to the institute in 2021 and Harvard University number theory expert Liu Yifei joined in 2022.
Sun’s main research interests include differential geometry, a branch of maths that studies the geometry of curves and surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, with wide applications in daily life ranging from medical imaging to computer vision.