Rate My Professor Ravi Vakil

Ravi Vakil is the Robert Grimmett Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, where he has served on the faculty since 2001 following postdoctoral appointments at Princeton University and MIT. He earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1997, with a dissertation titled 'Enumerative Geometry of Curves via Degeneration Methods' under advisor Joe Harris. As an algebraic geometer, Vakil's research centers on algebraic geometry, with contributions to enumerative geometry, moduli spaces of curves, Schubert calculus, topology, and classical algebraic geometry. His notable results include 'Murphy's Law in algebraic geometry: Badly-behaved deformation spaces' published in Inventiones Mathematicae in 2006, 'A geometric Littlewood-Richardson rule' in Annals of Mathematics in 2006, and 'Schubert induction' also in Annals of Mathematics in 2006. Vakil authored the book The Rising Sea: Foundations of Algebraic Geometry, published by Princeton University Press in 2025, which provides foundational notes widely used in the field. Other key works include A Mathematical Mosaic: Patterns and Problem-Solving (first edition 1997, expanded second edition 2007), Mirror Symmetry (2003, co-authored), and numerous papers such as 'The Mathematics of Doodling' in the American Mathematical Monthly in 2011, 'The equations for the moduli space of n points on the line' in Duke Mathematical Journal in 2009, and 'Towards the geometry of double Hurwitz numbers' in Advances in Mathematics in 2005.

Vakil has received major awards including the American Mathematical Society Centennial Fellowship in 2001, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation CAREER grant, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, Chauvenet Prize in 2014, and Simons Fellowship in Mathematics in 2013. He served as Pólya Lecturer for the Mathematical Association of America from 2012 to 2014, with the associated article winning the Lester R. Ford Award in 2012 and the Chauvenet Prize in 2014; he is also the Earle Raymond Hedrick Lecturer from 2009 and scheduled for the Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture in 2025. Currently, he is President of the American Mathematical Society for 2025-2027. Vakil holds editorial positions as series editor for Springer's Graduate Texts in Mathematics and founding editor for Algebra and Number Theory, Forum of Mathematics Pi and Sigma, and Involve. He co-founded MathOverflow, Proof School, and the Stanford Math Circle, and launched the Stanford Undergraduate Research Institute in Mathematics, contributing significantly to mathematical education and community.