This spring, the Brandeis Department of Mathematics completed their search for the first Berger-Leighton Professor of Mathematics with the hiring of Dr. Daniel Álvarez-Gavela, currently an Assistant Professor at MIT. Dr. Álvarez-Gavela will be joining Brandeis in July 2024, after staying for one more year at MIT.
This new tenure-track faculty position is the result of the generous gift by Bonnie Berger ’83, a former Brandeis trustee and the Simons Professor of Mathematics at MIT, and her husband, Dr. Tom Leighton, Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT and CEO and cofounder of Akamai Technologies. Brandeis Mathematics Chair Olivier Bernardi had this to say about the hire: “Dr. Álvarez-Gavela is a superb scholar, and an individual who embodies all the qualities that Brandeis ought to represent. Dr. Álvarez-Gavela is already collaborating with Brandeis Professor Kiyoshi Igusa on an ambitious research project aimed at importing sophisticated algebraic results (first developed by Prof. Igusa and his collaborators), to bear fruition in the context of symplectic geometry. The Math Department was unanimously enthusiastic about Dr. Álvarez-Gavela and excited to see him come and develop at Brandeis, and contribute to the renewal of the Department.”
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