Ken Ono
Ken Ono (born March 20, 1968) is a Japanese-American mathematician who specializes in number theory, especially in integer partitions, modular forms, umbral moonshine, the Riemann Hypothesis and the fields of interest to Srinivasa Ramanujan. He is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics at Emory University and the Thomas Jefferson Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia. He served as the Vice President of the American Mathematical Society from 2018 to 2021. Early life and education. Ono was born on March 20, 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the son of mathematician Takashi Ono, who emigrated  from Japan to the United States after World War II. His older brother, immunologist and university president Santa J. Ono, was born while Takashi Ono was in Canada working at the University of British Columbia, but by the time Ken Ono was born the family had returned to the US for a position at the University of Pennsylvania. In the 1980s, Ono attended Towson High School, but he dropped out. He later enrolled at the University of Chicago without a high school diploma. There he raced bicycles, and he was a member of the Pepsi–Miyata Cycling Team. He received  his BA from the University of Chicago in 1989, where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. He earned his PhD in 1993 at UCLA where his advisor was Basil Gordon. Initially he planned to study medicine, but later switched to mathematics. He attributes his interest in mathematics to his father. Career. Ono worked as an instructor at Woodbury University from 1991 to 1993, as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Georgia from 1993 to 1994, and as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1994 to 1995. He was  a member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1995 to 1997. Ono worked at Pennsylvania State University from 1997 to 2000 as an assistant professor and then as the Louis A. Martarano Professor of Mathematics. He moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an associate professor in 1999, and later became the Solle P. and Margaret Manasse Professor of Letters and Science from 2004 to 2011 and as the Hilldale Professor of Mathematics from 2008 to 2011. He has been the Candler Professor of Mathematics at Emory University since 2010. In 2019, Ono became the Thomas Jefferson Professor  of Mathematics at the University of Virginia. He is serving as the chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Virginia from 2021 to 2026. Ono was the Vice President of the American Mathematical Society from 2018 to 2021. He is serving as the section chair for mathematics at the American Association for the Advancement of Science from 2020 to 2023. Research. In a joint work with Jan Bruinier, Ono discovered a finite algebraic formula for computing partition numbers. A framework for the Rogers–Ramanujan identities. In 2014, a joint paper by Michael J. Griffin, Ono, and S.  Ole Warnaar provided a framework for the Rogers–Ramanujan identities and their arithmetic properties, solving a long-standing mystery stemming from the work of Ramanujan. The findings yield new formulas for algebraic numbers. Their work was ranked 15th among the top 100 stories of 2014 in science by "Discover" magazine. Proof of the umbral moonshine conjecture. In a joint paper (co-authored with John Duncan and Michael Griffin), Ono proved the umbral moonshine conjecture. This conjecture was formulated by Miranda Cheng, John Duncan, and Jeff Harvey, and is a generalization of the monstrous moonshine conjecture proved by Richard Borcherds. Work  on the Riemann Hypothesis. In May 2019, Ono published a joint paper (co-authored with Don Zagier and two former students) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the Riemann Hypothesis. Their work proves a large portion of the Jensen-Polya criterion for the Riemann Hypothesis. However, the Riemann Hypothesis remains unsolved. Their work also establishes the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble random matrix condition in derivative aspect for the derivatives of the Riemann Xi function. Media work. He was an Associate Producer and the mathematical consultant for the movie "The Man Who Knew Infinity" based on Ramanujan's  biography written by Robert Kanigel. Personal life. From 2012 to 2014, Ono has competed in World Triathlon Cross Championships events while representing the United States. Editorial boards. Ono is on the editorial board of several journals: