Satyan Devadoss

Satyan L. Devadoss is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Applied Mathematics and Professor of Computer Science at the University of San Diego. His research concerns topology and geometry, with inspiration coming from theoretical physics, phylogenetics, and scientific visualization.

Devadoss graduated as valedictorian from North Central College in 1993. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1999 from Johns Hopkins University, under the supervision of Jack Morava. After postdoctoral studies at the Ohio State University under Mike Davis, he was a Williams College faculty from 2002 until 2016, receiving tenure and promotion to full-professor.He has held visiting positions at the University of California, Berkeley, the Ohio State University, Harvey Mudd College, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and Stanford University.

In 2012, he became one of the inaugural Fellows of the American Mathematical Society.

Devadoss is a winner of the Henry L. Alder National Teaching Award (2007), the Northeastern Sectional Award for Distinguished Teaching (2014), and the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics (2016), all awarded by the Mathematical Association of America.

In 2018, he co-led a team in designing, creating, and showcasing a two-ton metal, wood, and acrylic interactive sculpture titled "Unfolding Humanity" for Burning Man.The 12-foot tall dodecahedral artwork, externally skinned with black panels containing 2240 acrylic windows, with the interior lined with mirrors and large enough to hold 15 people, dealt with unsolved questions in mathematics (unfolding polyhedra) and physics (cosmological shape of the universe).

His collection of paintings, titled "Cartography of Tree Space" (jointly created with San Francisco-based artist Owen Schuh) has been on gallery shows in Berlinand Pasadena.

With Joseph O'Rourke, Devadoss is the author of the textbook Discrete and Computational Geometry (Princeton University Press, 2011). He was also recruited to create the Shape of Nature, a 36-lecture DVD course (Great Courses, 2010).

He is the cofounder of CereusData, a data visualization company that focuses on storytelling of institutional data.

Devadoss wrote an opinion editorial published by the Washington Post, on the nature of mathematics related to the humanities and the arts. It was chosen by the staff editors as one of their favorite opeds of the year.