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Audrey Terras
Born	September 10, 1942 (1942-09-10) (age 67) Washington, D.C.
Residence	San Diego, California
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of California, San Diego
Alma mater	Yale University
Doctoral advisor	Tsuneo Tamagawa
Notable awards	Fellow of the AAAS Noether Lecturer AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer

Audrey Terras (born September 10, 1942) is an American mathematician who works primarily in number theory. Her research has focused on quantum chaos and on various types of zeta functions.

Life and education

Audrey Terras was born September 10, 1942 in Washington, D.C.^[1] She received a BS degree in mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1964, and MA and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1966 and 1970 respectively.^[2] She stated in a 2008 interview that she chose to study mathematics because "The U.S. government paid me! And not much! It was the time of Sputnik, so we needed to produce more mathematicians, and when I was deciding between Math and History, they weren’t paying me to do history, they were paying me to do math."^[3]

Career

Terras joined the University of California, San Diego as an assistant professor in 1972, and is now a full professor there.^[2]

As an undergraduate Terras was inspired by her teacher Sigekatu Kuroda to become a number theorist; she was especially interested in the use of analytic techniques to get algebraic results. Today her research interests are in number theory, harmonic analysis on symmetric spaces and finite groups, special functions, algebraic graph theory, zeta functions of graphs, arithmetical quantum chaos, and the Selberg trace formula.^[4]

Terras was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1982.^[1] She was the Association for Women in Mathematics- Mathematical Association of America AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer in 2000, speaking on "Finite Quantum Chaos,"^[5] and the AWM's Noether Lecturer in 2008, speaking on "Fun with Zeta Functions of Graphs".^[6]

Selected publications

• Terras, Audrey (1985). Harmonic Analysis on Symmetric Spaces and Applications. 1. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 9780387961590.  
• Terras, Audrey (1988). Harmonic Analysis on Symmetric Spaces and Applications. 2. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 9780387966632.  
• Terras, Audrey (1999). Fourier Analysis on Finite Groups and Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521457187.  
• Terras, Audrey (February 2002). "Finite Quantum Chaos". American Mathematical Monthly (Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America) 109 (2): 121–139. doi:10.2307/2695325. ISSN 0002-9890.   Article based on her 2000 Falconer lecture.
• Terras, Audrey (2007-03-20). "A Stroll Through the Garden of Graph Zeta Functions" (PDF). University of California, San Diego. http://math.ucsd.edu/%7Eaterras/newbook.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-26.   Draft of a book on zeta functions of graphs.

Notes

Further reading

• "Interview with Audrey Terras" (PDF). UCSD Math Club Newsletter. University of California, San Diego. Fall 2008. pp. 1, 3. http://math.ucsd.edu/programs/undergraduate/Math_Club_Newsletter.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-26.   Interview conducted October 30, 2008.
• Terras, Audrey (2005). "Rules for Academic Success". in Case, Bettye Anne; Leggett, Anne M.. Complexities: Women in Mathematics. Princeton University Press. pp. 218–220. ISBN 978-0691114620.   Terras's "Five Simple Rules for (Academic) Success (or at Least Survival)."

External links

• Audrey Terras at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Terras's home page at UCSD