Isabelle Shankar

Isabelle Shankar will complete her PhD in mathematics at UC Berkeley in May, under the supervision of Serkan Hosten. Her mathematical interests include real algebraic geometry, polynomial optimization, and combinatorics, with varying degrees of knowledge in each area. In particular, she studies problems arising in convex algebraic geometry with symmetries to exploit including certifying nonnegativity of symmetric polynomials.

She also works to support and build collaborations with the many diverse communities within mathematics. At Berkeley she was an organizer of The Noetherian Ring (nring.math.berkeley.edu) and is a member of the program committee for the first Queer and Trans Mathematicians in Combinatorics Conference (queertransmath.com).

Outside of math she loves climbing, cooking and traveling. Getting to go to conferences all over the world is one of the reasons she became a mathematician.