Quick Facts
Biography
Susan Mary Rees, FRS (born Cambridge, 31 July 1953) is a British mathematician and a Professor of Mathematics at Liverpool University since 2002, specialising in research in complex dynamical systems.
After obtaining her BA in 1974 and MSc in 1975 at St Hugh's College, Oxford, she did research in mathematics under the direction of Bill Parry at Warwick University, obtaining a PhD in 1978. She was awarded a Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 1988. The citation notes that, in particular,
Her most spectacular theorem has been to show that in the space of rational maps of the Riemann sphere of degree d ≥ 2 those maps that are ergodic with respect to Lebesgue measure and leave invariant an absolutely continuous probability measure form a set of positive measure.
In recent years, much of Rees's work has focused on the dynamics of quadratic rational maps; i.e. rational maps of the Riemann sphere of degree two, including an extensive monograph. In 2004, she also presented an alternative proof of the Ending Laminations Conjecture of Thurston, which had been proved by Brock, Canary and Minsky shortly before.
FRS
She was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 2002.
Family
Her father David Rees was also a distinguished mathematician, who worked on Enigma in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park.
Works
- Mary Rees (2010) "Multiple equivalent matings with the aeroplane polynomial". Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems, pp. 20
- Mary Rees (2008) "William Parry FRS 1934–2006". Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society, 54, pp. 229–243
- Mary Rees (2004) "Teichmuller distance is not $C^{2+\varepsilon }$". Proc London Math, 88, pp. 114–134
- Mary Rees (2003) "Views of Parameter Space: Topographer and Resident". Asterisque, 288, pp. 1–418
- Mary Rees (2002) "Teichmuller distance for analytically finite surfaces is $C^{2}$." Proc. London Math. Soc. 85 (2002) 686 – 716.,85, pp. 686–716