Nina Zubrilina

Nina Zubrilina is currently a PHD student at Princeton University pursuing a degree in mathematics. ^[1] Zubrilina has already received her BS in mathematics at the University of Stanford with departmental honors. ^[3] She wrote six published papers and were published onto websites such as Discussiones Mathematicae and Discrete Mathematics, with further papers under revision at the International Journal of Number Theory and International Mathematics Research Notices. ^[5] Zubrilina, most recently, has won the 2020 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student. ^[3] ^[7] Apart from mathematical research, she enjoys playing music, making films and writing film scores, lifting, and reading. ^[3]

Early Life

Zubrilina was born in the United States and lived there for about one month until her parents took her to live in Moscow, Russia. ^[1] She spent her entire childhood in Moscow and up until the age of 17, she arrived back to the United States to attend Stanford University. ^[1] For high school, she attended Moscow State School 57 where Zubrilina first started to advance her mathematical intellect. ^[1]

Mathematical Studies

During her time at Stanford University, Zubrilina partook in many research projects and internships for mathematical studies.

The Duluth Undergraduate Research Program

Nina Zubrilina underwent the University of Minnesota Duluth Undergraduate Research Project twice during her lifetime. ^[1] It is a 10 week undergraduate summer program at Duluth, Minnesota that provides that teaches and focuses students on graph theory, combinatorics, and number theory. ^[2] The program has produced over 200 papers that have been published in well regarded professional-level journals. ^[2] They include papers on graph theory, combinatorics, numerical semigroups, number theory, group theory, ring theory, field theory, and game theory. ^[2] Most recently, Zubrilina was awarded for the 2020 Morgan Prize for her research in the areas of analysis and analytic number theory... characterized by her independent vision, her creativity, and her technical abilities. ^[3] ^[7]

Sphere Packing

While interning at Microsoft Research, Zubrilina wrote her own paper on sphere packing. ^[1] ^[4] She started her curiosity with sphere packing while she researched with squeezing spheres into ever-skrinking volumes and analyzing the structure of the tree-like diagrams that help scientists understand the evolutionary relationship of plant and animal species. ^[4] From this paper, she contributed to the sphere packing discussion with other researchers and received an honorable mention for the Alice T. Schafer Prize for her remarkable research success as an undergraduate, having 6 solo-authored papers written. ^[6] ^[8]

Awards and Honors

In 2020, Zubrilina was awarded the 2020 AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student for her research in the areas of analysis and analytic number theory... characterized by her independent vision, her creativity, and her technical abilities. ^[3] ^[7] She is also the recipient of the Goldwater Scholarship, which supports undergraduates who intend to pursue research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering. ^[4] ^[9] She was also awarded "The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, the Hertz Foundation Graduate Fellowship, the NSF Graduate Fellowship (NSF-GRFP), and the Princeton Centennial Fellowship". ^[5] ^[10] ^[11] ^[12] ^[13]

References

1. ^ Meet The Fellows, Nina Zubrilina, https://www.pdsoros.org/meet-the-fellows/nina-zubrilina, (2020)

2. ^ Joseph A. Gillian, The Duluth Undergraduate Research Program, https://www.d.umn.edu/~jgallian/progdesc.html, (2005)

3. ^ MAA, Nina Zubrilina to Receive the 2020 Morgan Prize, https://www.maa.org/news/nina-zubrilina-to-receive-the-2020-morgan-prize, (2019)

4. ^ The Hertz Foundation, Nina Zubrilina, https://hertzfoundation.org/fellows/fellow-profile/11351/Nina-Zubrilina, (2019)

5. ^ Stanford Department of Mathematics, Nina Zubrilina to Receive the 2020 Morgan Prize, https://mathematics.stanford.edu/news/nina-zubrilina-receive-2020-morgan-prize-phd-student-david-stoner-receives-honorable-mention, (2019)

6. ^ AWM, AWM 2019 Schafer Prize Honorable Mention, https://awm-math.org/awards/schafer-prize-for-undergraduates/schafer-prize-2019/, (2019)

7. ^ MAA, Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student, https://www.ams.org/prizes-awards/paview.cgi?parent_id=19

8. ^ AWM, Alice T. Schafer Mathematics Prize, https://awm-math.org/awards/schafer-prize-for-undergraduates/schafer-prize-2019/

9. ^ Barry Goldwater, The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, https://goldwater.scholarsapply.org

10.^ Paul & Daisy Soros, Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, https://www.pdsoros.org/fellowship

11.^ Fannie and John Hertz, History: Hertz Foundation, https://hertzfoundation.org/about/history

12.^ GRFP, The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, https://www.nsfgrfp.org/general_resources/about

13.^ Princeton Weekly Bulletin, Graduate School launches Centennial Fellow- ships, https://pr.princeton.edu/pwb/00/0207/p/grad.shtml