Aug 30, 2011 - Claremont, Calif. - Dhruv Ranganathan ’12 of Chennai, India, was awarded the inaugural Giovanni Borrelli Fellowship, which recognizes an HMC mathematics major who has demonstrated the ability to complete high-quality research either independently or in tandem with a faculty advisor.

The fellowship includes a stipend that will support summer research and travel, related to the research.

Ranganathan, is working with mathematics Professor Dagan Karp and Paul Riggins ’12 on techniques to study basic properties of toric varieties, with applications to Gromov-Witten Theory and Donaldson-Thomas Theory. This work impacts high-energy physics, algebraic geometry, algebraic topology and combinatorics. Ranganathan has described his results in a co-authored article entitled "Toric Symmetry of CP^3” and has lectured about his results in the Algebra, Number Theory and Combinatorics Seminar of The Claremont Colleges and at the 2011 Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans. A poster of this work was presented at the Fall 2010 Western Algebraic Geometry Seminar at the University of Arizona and was selected for inclusion at the WAGS Fall 2011 poster session at Colorado State University.

Dhruv's current interests include algebraic geometry and representation theory. He plans to continue studying these and other subjects in graduate school, with the goal of joining the professoriate.

Honoring Emeritus Professor Robert Borrelli
The Giovanni Borrelli Fellowship was established through the generosity of Emeritus Professor Robert (“Bob”) Borrelli, who joined HMC as a mathematics professor in 1964. In his over 30 years of service to the College, he has served as department chair and was pivotal in the development of the Clinic program. “Bob Borrelli was instrumental in helping to build the amazing Mathematics Department we have here today,” said fellow mathematics professor Andy Bernoff. “His creation of the Giovanni Borrelli Fellowship will support the next generation of mathematicians. He continues to be an inspiration for the Mathematics Department.”

Before coming to the College, Borrelli was a senior engineering specialist at Philco Corp., and a National Science Faculty Fellow at MIT and the University of Bonn, West Germany. He received his B.S. and M.S. in mathematics from Stanford University and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.