Laura DeMarco

Laura DeMarco is a professor of mathematics at Harvard University. Her research is focused in an area of pure mathematics that bridges two disciplines: the theory of dynamical systems and number theory. 

While at Radcliffe, she is exploring specific connections between dynamical properties (especially the stability of orbits under perturbation) and number-theoretic features (especially the existence of rational points) in algebraic dynamical systems. Even the simplest examples, such as those defined by iterating a polynomial of one variable, exhibit complicated dynamical features that are not yet understood. 

DeMarco received a PhD from Harvard University in 2002. She held faculty positions at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, and Northwestern University before returning to Harvard in 2020. Recent prizes include the 2020 Alexanderson Award from the American Institute of Mathematics and the 2017 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics from the American Mathematical Society. DeMarco was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.