at n the fall of 2026, Lucas will become an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University. Before that, he served as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas Austin. Prior to that, he was a Titchmarsh Research Fellow (Mathematics) at Oxford. He earned his PhD in pure mathematics at M.I.T. Lucas was the co-founder of Data for Black Lives, a Boston-based organization committed to mobilizing scientists around racial justice issues. Lucas was named an Echoing Green fellow and, in 2019, was named to Forbes 30 Under 30. Lucas is a 2014 US-Ireland Alliance Scholar. He completed a research-based master’s degree in Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin. Working under the supervision of Vladimir Dotsenko, Lucas completed a thesis on “natural differential geometry,” a branch of geometry that deals with geometric operations invariant under smooth changes of coordinates. During his Mitchell year, Lucas also led the content development team for MATHletes Challenge, Ireland’s first free, national math tournament, a project spearheaded by another USIA Scholar alum, Kelly Kirkpatrick. He is the author of Decoding Roger Williams, based on a long-standing 17th-century cipher he cracked as an undergraduate.

Lucas obtained his undergraduate degree from Brown University.

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