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{{Short description|American mathematician and professor (born 1973)}}
{{ Infobox scientist
| name = Kannan Soundararajan
| image = Kannan Soundararajan Stanford October 2010.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Soundararajan teaching at Stanford University
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1973|12|27|mf=yes}}
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| fields = [[Mathematics]]
| workplaces = [[Stanford University]] [[University of Michigan]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Michigan]] [[Princeton University]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[Peter Sarnak]]
| doctoral_students = {{plainlist|1=
*[[Sarah Peluse]]
*[[Maksym Radziwill]]
}}
| known_for =
| awards = [[Ostrowski Prize]] (2011) [[Infosys Prize]] (2011) [[SASTRA Ramanujan Prize]] (2005) [[Salem Prize]] (2003) [[Morgan Prize]] (1995)
}}

'''Kannan Soundararajan''' (born December 27, 1973)<ref name="Notices AMS September 2013 - Election Material">{{cite journal |author= |date=January 2019 |title=2013 AMS Elections - Special Section |url=https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201308/noti-full-election.pdf |journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society |volume=60 |issue=8 |page=1085 |issn=1088-9477 |access-date=2024-03-02}}</ref> is an [[India]]n-born American [[mathematician]] and a professor of mathematics at [[Stanford University]]. Before moving to Stanford in 2006, he was a faculty member at [[University of Michigan]], where he had also pursued his undergraduate studies. His main research interest is in [[analytic number theory]], particularly in the subfields of [[automorphic form|automorphic]] [[L-function]]s, and [[multiplicative number theory]].

==Early life==
{{BLP unreferenced section|date=November 2019}}
Soundararajan grew up in [[Chennai]] and was a student at [[Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan|Padma Seshadri High School]] in Nungambakkam in Chennai. In 1989, he attended the [[Research Science Institute]]. He represented India at the [[International Mathematical Olympiad]] in 1991 and won a Silver Medal.

==Education==

Soundararajan joined the [[University of Michigan]], Ann Arbor, in 1991 for undergraduate studies, and graduated with highest honours in 1995. Soundararajan won the inaugural [[Morgan Prize]] in 1995 for his work in [[analytic number theory]] while an undergraduate at the [[University of Michigan]],<ref>[https://www.ams.org/notices/199603/comm-morgan.pdf AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student.] [[Notices of the American Mathematical Society]], vol. 43 (1996), no. 3, pp. 323–324</ref> where he later served as professor. He joined [[Princeton University]] in 1995 and did his Ph.D under the guidance of Professor [[Peter Sarnak]].

==Career==
After his Ph.D. he received the first five-year fellowship from the American Institute of Mathematics, and held positions at Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Michigan. He moved to Stanford University in 2006 where he is, as of November 2022,<ref name="Stanford Mathematics Kannan Soundararajan">{{cite web | title=Kannan Soundararajan | website=Mathematics | url=https://mathematics.stanford.edu/people/kannan-soundararajan | access-date=2022-11-12}}</ref> the Anne T. and [[Robert Bass (businessman)|Robert M. Bass]] Professor of Mathematics.

He provided a proof<ref name="Balasubramanian Soundararajan Graham conjecture">{{cite journal | last1=Balasubramanian | first1=R. | last2=Soundararajan | first2=K. | title=On a conjecture of R. L. Graham | journal=Acta Arithmetica | volume=75 | issue=1 | year=1996 | issn=0065-1036 | pages=1–38 | doi=10.4064/aa-75-1-1-38 | url=https://eudml.org/doc/206861 | access-date=2022-11-12| doi-access=free }}</ref> of a conjecture of [[Ronald Graham (mathematician)|Ron Graham]] in combinatorial number theory jointly with [[Ramachandran Balasubramanian]]. He made contributions in settling the arithmetic Quantum Unique Ergodicity conjecture<ref name="Soundararajan 2010 QUE">{{cite journal | last=Soundararajan | first=Kannan | title=Quantum unique ergodicity for {{not a typo|SL2(ℤ)\ℍ}} | journal=Annals of Mathematics | volume=172 | issue=2 | year=2010 | issn=0003-486X | doi=10.4007/annals.2010.172.1529 | pages=1529–1538| s2cid=15626593 | doi-access=free }}</ref> for [[Maass wave forms]] and [[modular forms]].

==Awards==
He received the [[Salem Prize]] in 2003 "for contributions to the area of [[Dirichlet L-function]]s and related character sums". In 2005, he won the $10,000 [[SASTRA Ramanujan Prize]], shared with [[Manjul Bhargava]], awarded by [[SASTRA]] in [[Thanjavur]], [[India]], for his outstanding contributions to [[number theory]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.math.ufl.edu/~fgarvan/ramanujan/things/fsrp.html |title=The First SASTRA Ramanujan Prizes |accessdate=2011-04-24 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726092256/http://www.math.ufl.edu/~fgarvan/ramanujan/things/fsrp.html |archivedate=2011-07-26 }}</ref> In 2011, he was awarded the Infosys science foundation prize.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.infosys-science-foundation.com/prize/laureates/2011/kannan-soundararajan.asp|title=Infosys Prize - Laureates 2011 - Prof. Kannan Soundararajan}}</ref> He was awarded the Ostrowski prize<ref>[http://www.ostrowski.ch/pdf/preis2011.pdf Ostrowski Prize]</ref> in 2011, shared with [[Ib Madsen]] and [[David Preiss]], for a cornucopia of fundamental results in the last five years to go along with his earlier work.

He gave an [[list of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers|invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians]] in 2010, on the topic of "Number Theory".<ref>{{cite web|title=ICM Plenary and Invited Speakers since 1897|url=http://www.mathunion.org/db/ICM/Speakers/SortedByCongress.php|publisher=[[International Congress of Mathematicians]]|access-date=2013-08-15|archive-date=2017-11-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108012153/http://www.mathunion.org/db/ICM/Speakers/SortedByCongress.php|url-status=dead}}</ref> In July 2017, Soundararajan was a plenary lecturer in the Mathematical Congress of the Americas.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mca2017.org|title=Mathematical Congress of the Americas 2017}}</ref> He was elected to the 2018 class of [[fellow]]s of the [[American Mathematical Society]].<ref>{{citation|url=http://ams.org/profession/ams-fellows/new-fellows|title=2018 Class of the Fellows of the AMS|publisher=[[American Mathematical Society]]|accessdate=2017-11-03}}</ref> Kannan Soundararajan was invited as a plenary speaker<ref name="ICM 2022 plenary lecture Soundararajan">{{cite web | title=ICM 2022 | website=ICM 2022 | url=https://virtualicm2022.opade.digital/days/7/sessions/a381765e-a414-4f81-80df-b1b957620142 | access-date=2022-11-12 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> of the 2022 [[International Congress of Mathematicians]], scheduled to take place in [[Saint Petersburg]], but moved to Helsinki and online because of the [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine]].

==Selected publications==
*[[Roman Holowinsky|R. Holowinsky]] and K. Soundararajan, "Mass equidistribution for Hecke eigenforms," [https://arxiv.org/abs/0809.1636v1 arXiv:0809.1636v1]
*K. Soundararajan, "Nonvanishing of quadratic Dirichlet L-functions at s=1/2" [https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9902163 arXiv:math/9902163v2]
*K. Soundararajan, "Moments of the Riemann zeta function" https://annals.math.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/annals-v170-n2-p17-p.pdf

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://math.stanford.edu/~ksound/ Homepage at Stanford University]
*[http://www.aimath.org/news/que/ Making Waves]
*{{MathGenealogy |id=53166}}
*{{IMO results |id=2755}}
*[http://gonitsora.com/kannan-soundararajan-wins-the-infosys-prize-2011/ Infosys Prize 2011]
* [https://av.tib.eu/search?f=creator%3Bhttp://av.tib.eu/resource/Soundararajan__Kannan Videos of Kannan Soundararajan] in the AV-Portal of the [[German National Library of Science and Technology]]

{{Recipients of SASTRA Ramanujan Prize winners|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soundararajan, Kannan}}
[[Category:1973 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Indian emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Indian number theorists]]
[[Category:University of Michigan alumni]]
[[Category:Stanford University Department of Mathematics faculty]]
[[Category:21st-century American mathematicians]]
[[Category:International Mathematical Olympiad participants]]
[[Category:University of Michigan faculty]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian mathematicians]]
[[Category:Simons Investigator]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Mathematical Society]]
[[Category:People from Chennai]]
[[Category:American people of Indian Tamil descent]]
[[Category:Tamil people]]
[[Category:Research Science Institute alumni]]

Kannan Soundararajan - Revision history

CleanupBot at 04:05, 22 March 2026