{{short description|American mathematician}} {{use mdy dates|date=May 2026}} {{other uses}} {{Infobox mathematician | name = Alison Miller | birth_name = Alison Beth Miller | image = | image_size = 200px | caption = Alison B. Miller | birth_date = | birth_place = | nationality = | fields = Mathematics | thesis_title = Counting Simple Knots via Arithmetic Invariants<ref name=mathgenealogy>{{mathgenealogy|id=188312}}</ref> | doctoral_advisor = Manjul Bhargava | thesis_url = | thesis_year = 2014 | workplaces = | known_for = | website = | awards = Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize (2005) (2006) (2007) }}
'''Alison Beth Miller''' is an American mathematician who was the first American female gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad. She also holds the distinction of placing in the top 16 of the Putnam Competition four times, the last three of which were recognized by the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam award for outstanding performance by a woman on the contest.<ref>{{citation |url=https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/ |title=Putnam Competition archive, result pages for years 2004-2007}}</ref>
==Early life, education and career== Miller was home-schooled in Niskayuna, New York, and in 2000 came in third place in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.<ref>{{citation|url=http://juneauempire.com/stories/060100/Bre_news.html|publisher=Associated Press|title=Missouri seventh-grader wins spelling bee|date=June 1, 2000|quotation=Both the runner-up and the third-place finisher, 14-year-old Alison Miller of Niskayuna, N.Y., also are educated at home.|access-date=February 12, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151203062540/http://juneauempire.com/stories/060100/Bre_news.html|archive-date=December 3, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> She competed for the U.S. in the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2004, where she became the first American female gold medalist.<ref>{{citation |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=gXUUa4AJ4lIC&pg=PA213 | title = Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps – and What We Can Do about It | isbn = 9781851687992 | last = Eliot | first = Lise | publisher = Oneworld Publications | year = 2011 | page = 213|quotation=In 2004, Alison Miller became the first American girl to win a gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad}}.</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://mathforum.org/announce/congrats_alison.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914111026/http://mathforum.org/announce/congrats_alison.html|archive-date=2017-09-14|url-status=dead|title=Congratulations, Alison!|series=Math Forum|publisher=Drexel University School of Education|date=2004|access-date=2013-04-20}}.</ref><ref>{{citation|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/education/10math.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0|title=Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Sara|last=Rimer|date=October 10, 2008|quotation=Since [Melanie Wood in 1998], two female high school students, Alison Miller, from upstate New York, and Sherry Gong, whose parents emigrated to the United States from China, have made the United States team (they both won gold)}}.</ref><ref name="wired">{{citation|url=https://www.wired.com/geekdad/2008/10/what-makes-kids/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130716104437/https://www.wired.com/geekdad/2008/10/what-makes-kids/|archive-date=2013-07-16|magazine=Wired|title=What Makes Kids Love Math: Community and Playfulness|first=Kathy|last=Ceceri|date=August 13, 2010}}. Includes an extended description of Miller's home education and early interest in mathematics.</ref>
As an undergraduate, she studied mathematics at Harvard University. She won the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam award for outstanding performance by a woman in the Putnam Competition in 2005, 2006, and 2007,<ref name="awm-math">{{citation|url=https://awm-math.org/awards/schafer-prize-for-undergraduates/schafer-prize-2008/|contribution=Schafer Prize Co-Winner: Alison Miller|title=Eighteenth Annual Alice T. Schafer Prize|publisher=Association for Women in Mathematics|access-date=2019-09-15}}.</ref> matching the record set ten years earlier by Ioana Dumitriu. She coached American girls participating in the China Girls Mathematical Olympiad in 2007, the first year that the U.S. was represented in that Olympiad.<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/It-s-some-girls-idea-of-fun-math-camp-2512192.php|first=Jill|last=Tucker|title=It's some girls' idea of fun – math camp|newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle|date=August 6, 2007}}.</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6589891|title=South Bay girls defy stereotype in math contest|first=Jessie|last=Mangaliman|newspaper=San Jose Mercury-News|date=August 11, 2007}}.</ref>
In 2008, she became a co-winner of the Alice T. Schafer Prize for excellence in mathematics by an undergraduate woman from the Association for Women in Mathematics for her three undergraduate research papers.<ref name="awm-math" /><ref>{{citation|url=http://www.maa.org/news/011408jmmprizes.html|title=Prizes and Awards at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego|publisher=Mathematics Association of America|date=January 14, 2008|access-date=2013-04-20}}.</ref> That year she also received her B.A. degree with Highest Honors in Mathematics from Harvard University.<ref name="agnesscott">{{citation|url=http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/DidYouKnowArchive.htm|title=Did You Know Archive|series=Biographies of Women Mathematicians|first=Larry|last=Riddle|publisher=Agnes Scott College|access-date=2013-04-20}}.</ref> Her senior thesis, for which she won the Hoopes Prize,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/06/hoopes-prize-winners-number-more-than-80/|title=Hoopes Prize winners number more than 80|date=June 5, 2008|website=Harvard Gazette}}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://www.math.harvard.edu/mathtable/index.html|title=Undergraduate Mathematics Colloquium aka Math Table|publisher=Harvard Mathematics Department|access-date=2013-04-20|quotation=Dustin Clausen and Alison Miller were recipients of the Hoopes Prizes this year, for their outstanding senior theses|archive-date=2024-11-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241111044838/https://math.harvard.edu/mathtable/index.html|url-status=dead}}.</ref> was titled "Explicit Class Field Theory in Function Fields: Gross-Stark Units and Drinfeld Modules." She was then awarded a Churchill Scholarship to study for a year at the University of Cambridge in England.<ref name="wired" /><ref name="agnesscott" /><ref>{{citation|url=http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/03/senior-awarded-prestigious-churchill-scholarship/|newspaper=Harvard Gazette|title=Senior awarded prestigious Churchill Scholarship|date=March 13, 2008}}.</ref>
She earned her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2014, under the supervision of Manjul Bhargava; her dissertation concerned knot invariants.<ref name=mathgenealogy/> After graduation, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University before becoming an associate editor for Mathematical Reviews.<ref>{{citation | last = Gallian | first = Joseph A. | editor1-last = Beery | editor1-first = Janet L. | editor2-last = Greenwald | editor2-first = Sarah J. | editor3-last = Kessel | editor3-first = Cathy | contribution = Snapshots of AWM's Alice T. Schafer prize winners | doi = 10.1007/978-3-030-82658-1_35 | isbn = 978-3-030-82657-4 | location = Cham | mr = 4454634 | pages = 389–404 | publisher = Springer | series = Association for Women in Mathematics Series | title = Fifty years of women in mathematics—reminiscences, history, and visions for the future of AWM | volume = 28 | year = 2022}}; see "2008: Galyna Dobrovolska and Alison Miller", p. 399.</ref>
She should not be confused with Allison N. Miller, a mathematician at Swarthmore College.<ref>{{citation |title=Allison N. Miller |url=https://sites.google.com/view/anmiller/ |access-date=2023-06-23}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alimil Home page] hosted by the University of Michigan
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Alison}} Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Living people Category:21st-century American mathematicians Category:International Mathematical Olympiad participants Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Scripps National Spelling Bee participants Category:21st-century American women mathematicians Category:Year of birth missing (living people)