John Urschel

John Urschel is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, affiliated with the Department of MATH. He joined the Department of Mathematics at MIT in 2023. Urschel received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in mathematics from Penn State, and his PhD in mathematics from MIT. Prior to joining the faculty, he was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study and a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. His research focuses on theoretical questions in matrix analysis and matrix computations. In 2024, he received the SIAM DiPrima Prize for his thesis Graphs, Principal Minors, and Eigenvalue Problems, and the SIAM Early Career Prize in Linear Algebra.

John Urschel is a researcher specializing in matrix analysis, numerical linear algebra, and spectral graph theory. His work explores the intersection of these fields, focusing on problems such as spectral bisection of graphs, approximation of graph bisection, and the numerical stability of algorithms like Gaussian elimination. He has contributed to the understanding of determinantal point processes, multidimensional scaling, and the spectral properties of graph Laplacians. His research also includes the analysis of centroidal Voronoi tessellations, the maximum spread of graphs, and the computation of Fiedler vectors. Urschel's publications highlight his expertise in developing efficient and stable numerical methods for large-scale problems in mathematics and computer science.