In Math and Life, Svetlana Jitomirskaya Stares Down Complexity

On paper, it would make sense that a person born in 1966 would become a mathematician. Her family was all one. Back then, her mother was the only female professor of mathematics in the country.

Her mother tried to keep her away from the topic. She thought that Jitomirskaya didn't have enough talent to be a research mathematician. She wanted to study Russian poetry as a child.

Politics and circumstance made her want to pursue a career in mathematics. The humanities education in the Soviet Union would always be entwined with Communism. The results of this corruption were tragic. There was no mathematics that seemed to be related to that. She obtained both her undergraduate and graduate degrees after attending the prestigious Moscow State University.

After completing her PhD in 1991, she and her husband moved to the United States, where she began teaching part-time at the University of California, Irvine. She quickly got to her destination. She has been named the Hubbard Chair professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

She was awarded the inaugural Olga Alexandrovna Ladyzhenskaya Prize earlier this year for her work on problems in analysis and mathematical physics. The prize was announced during the International Congress of Mathematicians around the same time as the Fields medals. This editorially independent magazine is funded by the Simons Foundation, which funded the prize in the future. The funding decisions of the Simons Foundation don't affect our coverage. Jitomirskaya studies quasi-periodic operators, which model the behavior of electrons in certain environments and are relevant to quantum physics.

Three of her children are pursuing mathematical careers.

Jitomirskaya talked about her research, her experiences as a young Jewish woman in the former Soviet Union, and her hopes for math education in an interview with the magazine.

The interview has been edited to make it clearer.

Your first love wasn’t math, but literature. Why was that?

I excelled in language arts when I was a kid. I liked to read poetry and write. I could listen to a poem and remember it in a second. Thousands of Russian poems were learned by me as a child. When I was 9 or 10 years old, my parents noticed that I was reading the literary criticism section in their weekly newspaper.

A famous children's poet leads a literature studio. It was an important part of my upbringing. The studio created my personality and who I am. I was very shy about sharing my poetry after the critique. I didn't learn to write but I did learn to read. I saw things in poems that other people didn't.

I was a big fan of poetry. I didn't think of myself as a future mathematician.

Was that unexpected, given that everyone else in your family — your parents, your older brother — was a mathematician?

It was surprising to one of my grade school teachers that I didn't do as well in math as I could have. My parents and my mom thought that I shouldn't be a mathematician.

Why not?

They wanted me to be happy. My mom probably didn't think this was a good path to take. Her friends were also mathematicians. She was friends with the parents of a child who could do math at a young age. The Fields medal was awarded to Drinfeld. She knew what it meant for a child to have talent in math. I think she thought I didn't have enough talent to be successful.

She tried to keep me away from math. She tried to get me to become a doctor, but I was afraid of the sight of blood, so she began teaching me psychology. I wasn't really interested in that. Literature was the thing that I was most interested in.

So then what ultimately drew you to math?

As a child, I probably had a good grasp on math. I don't know how people missed it. When I watched my mom do mathematics, I didn't think I'd be like her. I didn't think I had it in me. She was very fast and I am not a very fast thinker. I liked her a lot.

There are some early signs of interest in math. When I got my new set of math textbooks, the first thing I would do was to solve all the challenges at the back. I like to test myself. Growing up among mathematicians helped me overcome my family's opposition to math. One of our favorite pastimes was to solve logic puzzles. She wouldn't give me hints when she came up with the problem. I used to think about some of the puzzles for a long time, returning to the same problems over and over. If I solved it myself, I would be happy.

I started studying mathematics around 9th grade. I was thinking about school. It wasn't appealing to study philology or literature in the soviet union. It was part of the ideology. I wouldn't have been allowed to study the kind of literature I liked, or study my favorite poets without mentioning the Communist party.

I wanted to study with a famous literary critic. My parents were scared because he was a dissident. They were against the regime but didn't want me to be a dissident. They spoke me out of it.

The next best thing was mathematics. It was in university that I began to like it.

At this time, you also had to deal with antisemitism. How did that shape you?

I wanted to go to Moscow State University. Moscow was the center of all things cultural. The most brilliant mathematicians were there. I was on a vacation when I met a boy from Moscow. He became my husband after I fell in love with him.

The chances of me being accepted to Moscow State were very low. One or two Jews could be admitted into a class of 500. Many doors were closed for you if you were listed as Jewish on your passport. I had to keep my identity a secret. When I got my passport, it said "Ukrainian" instead of "Jewish". On my application, I lied about my father being a Jew. I was afraid that it would be discovered and I would be kicked out of school.

I got married while I was in university and my husband's name is Jewish. I had no chance of going to graduate school with him. I hid my wedding from everyone except my family and friends. I didn't tell anyone when I became pregnant because it was considered shameful to be pregnant without being married.

It was hard to keep it from my classmates. I didn't have friends from my college days because I had a big secret. I couldn't tell anyone what was going on.

You ended up studying problems in mathematical physics and dynamical systems. What drew you to those areas?

I didn't like physics before I started researching it. I didn't gain an intuitive understanding of everyday physical events in my physics class. The first paper he gave me to read was about physics. I didn't like it very much. There was no way out. How can you resist when you start to learn a lot and see a lot of intriguing mysteries?

How does your work intersect with physics?

I study models that govern the behavior of electrons in a variety of materials. This area is driven by physics even though many of the questions I study are purely mathematical. Graphene and other two-dimensional materials need to be studied by physicists. Some of the phenomena you see in those materials can be described in a model.

I study models that have quasi-periodicity. "Quasi-periodic" means something that may look chaotic at larger scales. You can fully describe the model's behavior as you change each of its parameters, which makes this structure very easy to analyze.

I'm proudest of my results on the almost Mathieu operator. The operator is related to the behavior of an electron on a plane. Some of the model's phase transitions were studied by me.

How do you spend your time when you’re not doing math?

My main interest was raising my children. I enjoy hiking, biking and swimming in nature. I like swimming in the cold water of the Pacific Ocean at sunrise or sunset because it gives me a great feeling of euphoria. I still enjoy reading poetry.

Your children are all pursuing mathematics, too. Did you hope for that, or were you more wary like your mom was with you?

It was not my intent. I taught them both Russian literature and math when they were small. I think I did a better job with mathematics. Maybe it is something that is innate. It's difficult to say.

Regarding education, you’ve also been critical of proposed changes to the math curriculum in California schools. Why?

The proposed California math framework would make it difficult for students to enter a career in a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field, and it would de-emphasize pre-calculus in favor of data science, which would make it difficult for students to enter a career in It's important to gain a fundamental understanding of the pre-calculus courses. Those who want to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics should get more of that.

I don't think I know how to fix American education. It needs to be fixed

Since the invasion of Ukraine, you’ve also spent time trying to help. How so?

Russian and Ukrainians are traumatised by this. They were both my countries. I couldn't think about anything else for a long time. You tend to forget about other things when you get very involved in something, so math helps. I couldn't do anything else. I was involved in an effort to help evacuate people with medical issues, including Holocaust survivors, from Ukranian in March of this year. Some of the mathematicians who have been displaced have been provided jobs and education by me.

When did you leave Ukraine?

After graduating from Moscow State University in 1991, I came to the US. I decided to go with my husband after he was offered a post in California. I was prepared for everything. I started at a very low level. I worked as a part-time lecturer. It is unlikely that a major prize winner would have such a trajectory.

Did that affect how you saw yourself as a mathematician?

I underestimated myself a lot. My parents are probably one of the reasons. That's right, laughing. I didn't feel stressed about satisfying their ambitions because they had low ambitions for me. It resulted in some self-esteem issues. I believe I was better than they thought of me.

After starting research, I didn't have any results, even though I excelled as an undergrad. I didn't realize that my adviser was giving me difficult problems. Most people wouldn't have continued. I was able to finish my PhD with a total of seven papers.

It is possible that the fact that I started so low has led to some serious respect issues in my own department, something that is not fully gone to this day.

I think I got it because I am a woman. It is unpleasant for many people to think like that. They are sure it is because of her gender if they don't know a woman's research.

When did you start thinking differently?

Gradually, it happened. I realized that I deserved to be recognized regardless of my gender. It doesn't mean that I didn't deserve it, even though my gender has helped in some ways. I have a better attitude to this now.

There is a reason mathematicians study knots.