Ravi Vakil's homepage

I am a Professor of Mathematics and the Robert K. Packard University Fellow at Stanford University, and was the David Huntington Faculty Scholar. I have received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, an American Mathematical Society Centennial Fellowship, a Frederick E. Terman fellowship, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation CAREER grant, the presidential award PECASE, and the Brown Faculty Fellowship. I have received the Coxeter-James Prize from the Canadian Mathematical Society, and André-Aisenstadt Prize from the CRM in Montréal. (This may give you a clue that I am Canadian.) I was the 2009 Earle Raymond Hedrick Lecturer at Mathfest, and I am the Mathematical Association of America's Pólya Lecturer 2012-2014.

• Some publications and preprints.
• Teaching:
  • This fall, I am teaching an experimental new course called Education as self-fashioning: Rigorous and Precise Thinking.
  • Last year, I taught a year-long course: Math 216: Foundations of Algebraic Geometry. The notes are here.
  • In winter 2011, I taught Math 245 (intersection theory). In fall 2010, I taught Math 120 (Modern Algebra), and Math 210A --- the first quarter of graduate algebra. Here are the solutions to the topsy turvy puzzle due to inventive students in the 120 class.
  • Here are some older teaching links. From 2001 until 2007, I coordinated the William Lowell Putnam competition at Stanford, and in conjunction with that I ran a weekly Pólya problem-solving seminar for talented undergraduates, as well as a Masterclass for experts --- more information here. The Pólya seminar is currently led by Kannan Soundararajan; click here for more information.
• I serve on the editorial boards of Advances in Mathematics, Algebra and Number Theory, Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, Gokova Geometry and Topology Journal, and Involve (a research journal for students). I used to serve on the board of the Mathematical Intelligencer. I serve on the International Mathematical Union's Committee on Electronic Information and Communication.

• The Department of Mathematics, including directions. Searchable and printable campus maps. The first link shows the math department.
• Some awards won by our undergraduates in 2010-11 (at some point to be updated --- they keep winning stuff).
• Along with Brian Conrad and David Hoffman, I've helped organized some public lectures at Stanford (at some point to be updated).

• Algebraic geometry at Stanford (including information about how to join our mailing list.)
• I co-organize the Stanford algebraic geometry seminar.
• Conferences in algebraic geometry.
• The Western Algebraic Geometry Symposium (WAGS).
• If you are thinking of doing your Ph.D. with me, read this.
• Some computer programs of interest to algebraic geometers. Also, Frank Sottile has created some animations illustrating some of the ideas behind the geometric Littlewood-Richardson rule (see #15, #17, and #27 here). Click on the picture on the right to see them.

For students

• I am the faculty advisor for the Stanford Math Circle (for high school students). Ted Alper is the director. For more information, or to sign up, click here. I serve on the advisory committee of the National Association of Math Circles.
• For high school students: the Stanford Math Circle (see above), the Stanford University Math Camp, the Berkeley Math Circle, the Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY), and other summer programs outside the Bay Area.
• Research Experiences for Undergraduates and other information for talented undergrads.
• The canonical mathematical competitions page, by Kiran Kedlaya. Mathematical Mayhem (a journal I co-founded, now part of Crux Mathematicorum).
• Letters of recommendation (not just for students).
• The "three things" exercise. (new)

• mathoverflow.net. (You can read about the site here.) I am a supporter of this site.
• Great writing in mathematics.
• Mathematical riddles: figure out the meanings of the following statements. (i) (ii) The number of finite sets is e. (If you can answer this, you may want to figure out the number of abelian p-groups. Terry Tao gives the answer on his blog.)

Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, Stanford CA USA 94305
phone: 650-725-6284 fax: 650-725-4066 E-mail: vakil@math.you-know-where.edu