Manil Suri awarded residency from The Rockefeller Foundation

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 16:55:11 -0400
ovpr-news-2016

This story first appeared on news.umbc.edu and was written by Max Cole.

Manil Suri is one of just 15 leading experts worldwide awarded a prestigious academic residency for September 2016 at the The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy. During the upcoming residency, Suri, a professor of mathematics, will work on his current book project, The Godfather of Numbers.

As an arts and literary arts resident, Suri is now part of a 56-year legacy that includes Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, artists, social entrepreneurs, and activists and the selection is recognition of his ability to promote the well-being of humanity around the world.

The residency program is made up of leading academics, artists, thought leaders, policymakers, and practitioners who have been recognized for their bold thinking and promise to further change the world for the better.

“The Foundation’s Bellagio Residency Program has a track record for supporting the generation of important new knowledge addressing some of the most complex issues facing our world, and innovative new works of art that inspire reflection and understanding of global and social issues,” according to a description about the program on the Rockefeller Foundation’s website.

In a short biography announcing September’s Bellagio residents, the foundation states: “Suri’s The Godfather of Numbers is a novel that aims to posit mathematics as the basis of all creation with The Godfather of Numbers as the narrator who initiates a mathematical big bang to create the counting numbers out of nothingness. His foremost objective for the book is to create a compelling piece of fiction and to allow readers an entry into the world of mathematics which does not assume mathematical expertise. While bringing out mathematics’ playful aspects for a wide target audience, he also wants to provide insight into how it works invisibly in so much of the universe. Mathematics is a much-maligned and poorly understood subject, and he hopes the book is a step towards reducing the anxiety surrounding it.”

Read more about residency program on The Rockefeller Foundation’s website. For more on Manil Suri’s previous books, visit his author website and to learn more about his teaching and research, visit his UMBC website.

Image: Manil Suri. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.