Education
After earning a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from the University of Toronto in 1992, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy in mathematics at Harvard University in 1997 under Joe Harris.
After earning a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from the University of Toronto in 1992, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy in mathematics at Harvard University in 1997 under Joe Harris.
He has since been an instructor at both Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since the fall of 2001, he has taught at Stanford University, becoming a full professor in 2007. He was also the fourth person to be a four-time Putnam Fellow in the history of the contest. Also, he has been the coordinator of weekly Putnam preparation seminars at Stanford.
Vakil has received many awards, including an National Science Foundation Career Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, an American Mathematical Society Centennial Fellowship, a G. de B. Robinson Prize for the best paper published in the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, and the André-Aisenstadt Prize from the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques at the Université de Montréal (2005). In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
American Mathematical Society]
He was a member of the Canadian team in three International Mathematical Olympiads, winning silver, gold, gold in 1986, 1987, and 1988 respectively.
