Martha Precup, an associate professor of mathematics, has received the Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize from the Association for Women in Mathematics, a national research society. The award is given to outstanding female mathematicians who have recently been promoted to associate professorships.

The award was established in honor of Ruth I. Michler, an accomplished associate professor in mathematics at the University of North Texas who was killed in an accident in 2000.

Recipients spend a semester pursuing their research at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Michler’s hometown. Precup will be at Cornell for the spring semester of 2027. “I’m honored to receive this award, and I’m looking forward to a chance to pursue new research ideas and build new collaborations,” Precup said.

Precup studies highly complex polynomial equations, mathematical functions that describe relationships between numbers and variables. The equations describe geometric objects such as Hessenberg varieties and Springer fibers.

While at Cornell, she plans to study how different approaches to reducing polynomials affect the overall solution sets. “I work with equations that can have hundreds of variables,” Precup said. “By modifying these equations, we hope to simplify the geometry while keeping other important properties intact.”

In 2023, Precup won a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for her project “Hessenberg varieties, symmetric functions, and combinatorial representation theory.”

Precup is the faculty advisor for the undergraduate Association for Women in Mathematics chapter at WashU. In 2024, she founded the annual Sonia Kovalevsky Math Day, which invites local middle schoolers to explore math at WashU.

“Mentorship is an important part of my job,” Precup said. “I enjoy helping young people see the possibilities of a career in math.”