14/09/2023

IMPA student's thesis wins Gutierrez Prize.

Emily Quesada-Herrera, PhD from IMPA, is the first transgender woman to win the Gutierrez Prize for Best Thesis in Mathematics . The award annually recognizes the best doctoral thesis in mathematics defended in Brazil in the previous year. The initiative is from the Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences (ICMC) of USP in partnership with the Brazilian Mathematical Society (SBM) .

For her achievement, Emily will receive a certificate and R$ 3,000. She will also give a lecture during the awards ceremony, which will be held on September 25th at 2 pm in the Fernão Stella Rodrigues Germano auditorium at ICMC, in São Carlos (SP).

With her doctoral thesis, " On uncertainty principles, Fourier optimization and the Riemann zeta-function ," Emily builds bridges between two areas of mathematics: number theory and harmonic analysis. In her lecture, she will also explain the main results presented in her thesis, which explored different mathematical techniques and led to the publication of five scientific articles.

Emily is from Costa Rica and left her home country at age 21 to pursue her dream of becoming a mathematics researcher in Rio de Janeiro. She is currently doing postdoctoral research in Austria and will return to Brazil to receive the award. For her, the prize is also an opportunity to raise awareness of the causes she champions.

“I’ve had many opportunities that are systematically stolen from most trans people in Latin America, starting with basic things like education, even if that comes at the cost of hiding my identity for years.”

The Costa Rican woman says that her gender transition was a difficult process, but that she had a support network, including IMPA researcher Emanuel Carneiro, her former doctoral and master's thesis advisor; her family, who live in San José, the capital of Costa Rica; and her colleagues in Austria, where she has lived since last year.

"There were many difficulties in my process. But also, on the other hand, I want to acknowledge that I still had privileges. There are trans experiences distinct from mine, due to intersections of various identities beyond gender, such as race, disability, and economic conditions, which are often also ignored."

She also argues that it is necessary to fight socially for better conditions. " I benefited from the collective struggles of people before me, such as the right to my name, something that many people in Latin America still don't have."

*With information from the ICMC/USP Press Office.