Anna Wienhard Receives Hector Science Award

Anna Wienhard, current Member in the School of Mathematics, has received the Hector Science Award 2022 from the Hector Foundation, which honors outstanding scientists from German universities and research institutions. 

Wienhard, along with Christian Haas, who received the award for his work in cell biology, will join a circle of now 28 Hector Fellows. Currently a director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig, Wienhard is cited by the foundation as one of the world’s leading mathematicians in the field of differential geometry.

Wienhard works on Lie groups and their discrete subgroups, higher rank Teichmüller theory, total positivity and its generalizations, moduli spaces, geometric structures, and applications of geometry and topology in data analysis. Her promotion of the connection between fundamental mathematics and other sciences, including theoretical physics and machine learning, has earned her praise from the foundation. 

The Hector Foundation promotes research, young scientists, social responsibility, and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to strengthen Germany as a location for science as well as to contribute to issues on a global scale. The Hector Fellow Academy was founded in 2013 to promote exchange between laureates of the Hector Science Award. 

The Hector science Award ceremony took place on January 27, 2023.