interests. The intersection of number theory and logic is the locus of much of Shlapentokh’s scholarship. Given an equation – a “sentence” in mathematical language – Shlapentokh grapples with the timeless epistemological queries: What is decidable? What is definable? How can we demonstrate the truth (or falsity)?
The isolated, scholarly ivory tower has been razed by the internet as this communication medium provides both access to scholarship and a bridge to others with parallel interests. The passion to search for new knowledge enlivens everything that Sasha Shlapentokh does. “I still remember being denied opportunity in the land of my birth. My family came here with nothing. The United States owed us nothing. But here, with opportunities in education and in life, the country gave me everything.” So, for students: why mathematics? “One of the chief values of the field is that it helps people to dissect problems, to find a perspective on problems, and then to find answers.” In a life and in a discipline that have so many variables, Sasha Shlapentokh has found happy solutions. C
Sasha Shlapentokh by the Numbers
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53 Publications including in journals such as the Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, the International Journal of Numbers Theory, les Annales de l‘Institut Fourier, das Journal für die Reine und Angewandte Mathematik , Inventiones Mathematicae, and the Israel Journal of Mathematics
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60 presentations, including Recursion Theory Workshop, Kazan, Russia, 1997 Logic Seminar, University of Athens, Greece, 2002 Mathematical Institute of Oxford, Oxford, UK, 2004 Department of Mathematics and Computing, Universidad de Concepción, Chile, 2008 Definability in Number Theory Meeting, Ghent, Belgium, 2010 Conference on Computability in Europe, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2011 Logic Colloquium, Manchester, UK, 2012
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8 Grants, including monies from prestigious funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Fund, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Program of the National Security Agency
Workshop on Hilbert’s Tenth Problem, Mazur’s Conjectures and Divisibility Sequences, Oberwolfach, Germany, January 2003
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