Finding Your Math Roots

Most people can trace a family tree through parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. Mathematicians can do something similar, but instead of following genetic bloodlines, they trace an academic genealogy through the areas of inquiry they choose to explore and the people who helped shape them.

Behind every mathematician is a vast network of teachers, mentors, advisers, collaborators and students whose influence extends far beyond any one individual. Together, these connections form their own “family tree,” spanning generations and carrying forward not only mathematical knowledge but also shared experiences and ways of thinking. Contrary to the stereotype of the solitary genius, mathematics has always been a deeply human endeavor shaped not only by ideas but also by the relationships that help those ideas grow.

Mathematicians Ingrid Daubechies, Rachel Ward, Soledad Villar and Teresa Huang make up four generations of a remarkable academic lineage that looks nothing like the tropes we’ve come to expect. It is defined not only by scientific excellence but also by its role in breaking down barriers, pushing the frontiers of mathematical knowledge, and championing interdisciplinary exploration between math and other areas, such as art and AI.

Join them as they sit down with Elizabeth Simolke, senior program manager of the Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division, for a conversation about how relationships shape careers, inspire discovery and create pathways for future generations. As they trace the branches of their mathematical family tree, this conversation will explore the human connections that advance research, foster belonging and help new ideas take root.

Daubechies is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Duke University. Her sprawling research career has touched fields as diverse as art restoration, evolutionary biology, electrical engineering and, most notably, image and data processing. Her most famous contributions concern wavelets, mathematical structures vital for modern signal processing. Her proposal of an institute devoted to data analysis ultimately led to the formation of the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academia Europaea. She is a 1992 MacArthur Fellow and served as president of the International Mathematical Union from 2011 to 2014. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, the Bakerian Medal, the National Medal of Science, the Nemmers Prize, the Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award and the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

Ward is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, with positions in the math department and the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. Her research spans stochastic optimization, randomized numerical linear algebra, applied harmonic analysis, and “AI+Math.” She has received several awards for her research, including the IMA Prize in Mathematics and its Applications, the Sloan Fellowship and the Institute for Advanced Study von Neumann Fellowship. She received her Ph.D. in computational and applied mathematics from Princeton University in 2009, supervised by Ingrid Daubechies. She was a Courant instructor from 2009 to 2011 before joining UT Austin as an assistant professor of mathematics. Between 2017 and 2018, she was a visiting research scientist at Facebook AI Research (FAIR), and from 2023 to 2025, she served as a principal researcher at Microsoft Research.

Villar is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Johns Hopkins University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, advised by Rachel Ward. She has done research at the University of California, Berkeley, New York University, Apple Research and the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute. She is originally from Uruguay.

Huang is a research scientist at Google Research in New York City. She is broadly interested in geometric deep learning, theory and algorithms for foundation models, and machine learning for science. Before joining Google, she was a research fellow in the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Mathematics. She completed her Ph.D. in 2024 at Johns Hopkins University, where she was co-advised by Professors Soledad Villar and Carey Priebe.

Simolke joined the Simons Foundation in 2019 as the outreach coordinator for the President’s Office before transitioning to the foundation’s Science, Society & Culture team in 2021. As senior program manager, she leads the division’s Researcher Engagement Program and oversees both the Presidential Lectures and the Presents public event series. She also plays an integral part in advancing the division’s national initiatives, with a focus on programs that support science engagement in rural communities and small towns across the country. Prior to coming to the foundation, Simolke served as the administrative manager of the Global Business Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds bachelor’s degrees in public relations and Spanish from Appalachian State University and completed her master’s studies in communication at the University of Chile.