Florian Richter, a fifth year students in our doctoral program, has won a highly prestigious Presidential Fellowship provided by the Ohio State Graduate School. Only about 20 of Presidential Fellowships awards are made every semester to the most exceptional doctoral students in the entire university. They recognize truly outstanding scholarship and research ability, and provide recipients with the opportunity to devote all of their time to their dissertation research for a full year.

Florian joined our Ph.D. program in 2012 after competing his Master’s degree (MASt) at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a previous Bachelor’s degree from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria. He has been working for the past three and a half years under the guidance of Professor Vitaly Bergelson on Ergodic Ramsey Theory, Topological Dynamics, and other related topics. To date four of Florian’s research articles have been published or accepted for publication, including his joint paper with J. Johnson on the Nilpotent Polynomial Hales-Jewett Theorem to appear in Advances of Mathematics. His resume includes three more papers in submission and further projects in progress. In addition, Florian has given several seminar talks, including one at Northwestern, and received much praise for his wide range of contributions from international scholars in his support letters. In our department, Florian is the organizer of the Graduate Ergodic Theory seminar and he has served as the analysis Headstart TA last year.