Background
Kane was born in Madison, Wisconsin, to Janet E. Mertz and Jonathan M. Kane, professors of oncology and of mathematics and computer science respectively.
Kane was born in Madison, Wisconsin, to Janet E. Mertz and Jonathan M. Kane, professors of oncology and of mathematics and computer science respectively.
Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He is currently an assistant professor with a joint position in the Mathematics Department and the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego. He was a mathematical prodigy. By 3rd grade, he had mastered K through 9th-grade mathematics.
Starting at age 13, he took honors math courses at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and did research under the mentorship of Ken Ono while dual enrolled at Madison West High School.
He earned gold medals in the 2002 and 2003 International Mathematical Olympiads. Prior to his 17th birthday, he resolved an open conjecture proposed years earlier by Andrews and Lewis.
Foreign this research, he was named Fellow Laureate of the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007 with two bachelor"s degrees, one in mathematics with computer science and the other in physics.
While at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kane was one of four people since 2003 (and one of eight in the history of the competition) to be named a four-time Putnam Fellow in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition.
Kane received his doctorate in mathematics from Harvard University in 2011. His dissertation, on number theory, was supervised by Barry Mazur. In his curriculum vitae, Kane lists as mentors Ken Ono while in high school, Erik Demaine, Joseph Gallian, and Cesar Silva while an undergraduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Barry Mazur, Benedict Gross, and Henry Cohn while a graduate student at Harvard.
Kane has written over 50 research papers in number theory, combinatorics, game theory, theoretical computer science, and related fields.