Second woman to be appointed to a Hausdorff Chair at the HCM Cluster of Excellence
Excellent reinforcement for the University of Bonn: Mathematician Angkana Rüland has accepted the call to a Hausdorff Chair. These are professorships for outstanding scientists at the Cluster of Excellence Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM). The 35-year-old is the second woman to hold this position and is herself an alumna of the University of Bonn. She will take up her position in March of this year.Angkana Rüland’s research is strongly inspired by problems that arise from the natural sciences and lead to exciting mathematical questions and structures. One example from materials science is the precise analysis of so-called shape memory alloys - special metal alloys that have a "memory" due to their thermodynamic behavior and can seemingly "remember" a previous shape despite severe deformation. "Modeling these materials and analyzing the associated microstructures leads to problems that are fascinating both from an experimental, application-oriented point of view and from an inner-mathematical point of view," says Angkana Rüland.
Another subject of her research is so-called inverse problems, in which one wants to obtain the most accurate information possible about objects through indirect, non-invasive measurements - as is the case, for example, with X-ray tomography. Another example of such an inverse problem is the "indirect" navigation of animals, for example bats and dolphins.
Commitment to research and teaching
Angkana Rüland brings a team of two doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to the university. "The mathematical environment in Bonn is an internationally outstanding place to work in mathematics in general and in analysis in particular - both in research and in teaching," she says. She is looking forward to an extremely strong and diverse group working in pure and applied analysis. "With a huge range of research seminars, colloquia, international workshops, summer schools and conferences, and exceptionally motivated and talented students, it’s a tremendous opportunity to work in such an inspiring atmosphere."
Angkana Rüland is particularly interested in promoting young talent and, in particular, in the exchange with students. Already in her student days, she was one of the first members of the HCM "school team". There, committed mathematics students strive to make university mathematics comprehensible to schoolchildren. In addition, Rüland was part of the founding team of the Bonn Math Club for grades seven to ten.
Close relationship with Bonn
Angkana Rüland has a close connection to Bonn. She went to school there and began studying mathematics while still at school in the early study program "FFF - Fördern, Fordern, Forschen" at the University of Bonn. After graduating from high school, she continued her studies at the University of Bonn. In 2014, she completed her doctorate under Herbert Koch at the Mathematical Institute and received the "Hausdorff Memorial Prize" for the best dissertation in mathematics in Bonn for her doctoral thesis.
After her PhD, she went to the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher and became a junior research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig in 2017. In 2020, Angkana Rüland received an appointment at the University of Heidelberg as a W3 professor. Now she returns to Bonn and joins the excellent circle of top researchers at the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics as the second female holder of a Hausdorff Chair after Ana Caraiani.
Angkana Rüland at the Math Night
Anyone interested can learn more about Angkana Rüland’s research at the seventh "Math Night", which the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics is hosting as an online event on March 14 - this year together with the Leipzig Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences. The talk will be held in German. More info