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2/24/2009

Rice postdoc earns rare NSF fellowship

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Peter Horn, who will receive his doctorate in mathematics in May, became only the second student from Rice's Department of Mathematics to be awarded a coveted National Science Foundation Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.

	PETER HORN

Horn will become a research scientist and assistant professor at Columbia University. The NSF awards approximately 40 such fellowships annually, each worth about $120,000 over three years.

"Columbia is an active university in the sort of research I do, topology and knot theory, and I'm excited about getting to talk to so many people who work in this area," said Horn, a Denton, Texas, native who earned his undergraduate degree at Hendrix College in Arkansas before coming to Rice.

Horn's research in low-dimensional topology centers on the use of noncommutative algebra to describe highly nonlinear aspects of the shape of three and four-dimensional objects, specifically in the theory of knots.

Shape is important in the study of networks, search algorithms, the design of drugs, satellite recognition of objects, the medical imaging and modeling of human organs and the function of cellular DNA.

"I don't do practical stuff on a daily basis, but there are applications," said Horn, "I know people in the Texas Medical Center are using knot theory to study the DNA of different cells in the body and how it relates to cancer."