Ishan Levy

Ishan Levy will receive his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2024, under the supervision of Michael Hopkins.

Levy is known for his deep and ingenious contributions to homotopy theory. His new techniques in algebraic K-theory have led to solutions of many old problems. In joint work with Burklund he established the rational convergence of the “Waldhausen tower” interpolating between the K-theory of the integers and one of the most important moduli spaces in the study of high dimensional manifolds, A(pt). He is most renowned for his work Ravenel’s “Telescope Conjecture.”

In the late 1970s Ravenel made a series of deep conjectures outlining a rich conceptual vision of stable homotopy. By the mid 1980s all but the Telescope Conjecture had been proved. For over 40 years this remained the most important problem in this part of homotopy theory. Levy’s methods in K-theory led him, Burklund, Hahn and Schlank, to the construction of counterexamples, and, in joint work with Burklund, Carmeli, Hahn, Schlank and Yanovski, to an estimate of the growth rate of the stable homotopy groups of spheres that was completely untouchable by previous methods.

Ishan was appointed as a Clay Research Fellow for a term of five years from 1 July 2024.

Photo: Archives of the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach