Ravi Vakil's homepage

I am the Robert Grimmett Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, and the President-Elect of the American Mathematical Society (AMS).

I am an algebraic geometer, with interests in many parts of mathematics.

My most important contributions

• My Ph.D. students have been particularly amazing, and I am very proud of what they have done. (My undergraduate students, collaborators, former postdocs, and mentors and teachers are also amazing, but there is no easy way to give links to them all.)
• My notes The Rising Sea: Foundations Of Algebraic Geometry are available here; they will be published by Princeton University Press in 2025.
• I cofounded MathOverflow (my role is a supporting one; the moderators do the work), and the Grades 6-12 San Francisco educational institution Proof School. I remain on the boards of both nonprofits. I am also on the board of the newly launched nonprofit "National Math Stars", whose mission is to ensure mathematically extraordinary students from all communities have the resources they need to reach the frontiers of math and science.
• My research awards include the Centennial Fellowship from the AMS, the Coxeter-James Prize from the Canadian Mathematical Society, the CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
• Highlights of other past honors: Robert K. Packard University Fellow at Stanford University; David Huntington Faculty Scholar; Frederick E. Terman fellowship; Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation CAREER grant, the presidential award PECASE, the Brown Faculty Fellowship, the André-Aisenstadt Prize from the CRM in Montréal. I was the 2009 Earle Raymond Hedrick Lecturer at Mathfest, and I was the Mathematical Association of America's Pólya Lecturer 2012-2014. The article based on this lecture has won the Lester R. Ford Award in 2012 and the Chauvenet Prize in 2014. In 2013, I was a Simons Fellow in Mathematics. Upcoming: The 2025 Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture at the Joint Mathematical Meetings (awarded by the AMS, MAA, and SIAM).
• Here are some publications and preprints.

• I have received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, and was the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.
• At the time of the last edit of this webpage, I am teaching Math 245A (Topics in Algebraic Geometry) (but check explorecourses for current information).
• Among unusual past courses I have taught:
  • I started the Polya seminar and taught it for around seven years; it has now been taken over by more capable hands!
  • In fall 2012, I taught an experimental liberal arts course called Education as Self-Fashioning: Rigorous and Precise Thinking.
• I used to have a list of past courses taught, but it became unwieldy. But I've kept coursepages and notes for past courses I've taught accessible. Perhaps I'll put some links here soon.

Algebraic geometry

• Algebraic geometry at Stanford; how to join our mailing list.
• I co-organize the Stanford algebraic geometry seminar.
• Conferences in algebraic geometry.
• WAGS: The Western Algebraic Geometry Symposium (I was part of the group founding the current incarnation in 2001.)
• 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.

Editorial boards

• I am the series editor of Springer's Graduate Texts in Mathematics series (with Tricia Hersh and Jared Wunsch). We have an incredible editorial board. (Which GTM are you?)
• I serve on the editorial boards of Algebra and Number Theory, Forum of Mathematics (Pi and Sigma) and Involve (a research journal for students). (If I remember correctly, I was a founding editor of each of these, and also epiga.)
• I formerly served on the boards of Advances in Mathematics, the Epijournal de Geometrie Algebrique (epiga), the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, the Gokova Geometry and Topology Journal, and the Mathematical Intelligencer. I remain a "Correspondent" for the Intelligencer.
• I used to serve on the International Mathematical Union's Committee on Electronic Information and Communication.

For students

• [needs to be updated] 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.
• [needs to be updated] 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.
• [needs to be updated] Research Experiences for Undergraduates and other information for talented undergrads.
• The canonical mathematical competitions page (and the Putnam page by Kiran Kedlaya).
• Letters of recommendation (not just for students).
• The page above for people thinking of doing a Ph.D. with me (listed above) contains a number of things that might be helpful for graduate students in general, such as, for example, the "three things" exercise.

• 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, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA USA 94305.
(Searchable and printable campus maps. The first link shows the math department.)
phone: 650-725-6284
email: rvakil@stanford.edu