Pierce granted Sloan fellowship

FALLBROOK – The New York Times announced Feb. 15, that Fallbrook’s Lilly Bee Pierce has been granted a Sloan Research Fellowship. Sloan fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research in early-career scientists and scholars.

The 2-year grants are awarded annually to researchers in acknowledgement of distinguished initial achievement and in recognition of unique potential to make substantial contributions in their fields. The 2018 Sloan Research Fellows will receive grants in the amount of $65,000.

Pierce, a theoretical mathematician whose work focuses on the areas of number theory and real analysis, currently is von Neumann Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton where she is collaborating on a project with professor Elias Stein, the senior mathematician who in 2009 supervised her doctoral thesis at Princeton University.

Pierce, daughter of Michael and Elizabeth Pierce, grew up with her family in Fallbrook where she was educated at Lavender Hill School. Inspired by her older brother Niles of the Fallbrook Union High School class of 1989, she went on to Princeton University where she was valedictorian of her graduating class, like her brother before her. Both siblings were also awarded Rhodes Scholarships and subsequently did graduate study at Oxford University.

For the 2018-2019 academic year, Pierce will return to a professorship at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she holds the Nicholas J. and Theresa M. Leonardy Chair of Mathematics.

Some North County residents may remember Pierce’s performance of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” in 2002, shortly before her departure for two years in England as a Rhodes scholar. The Fallbrook Music Society arranged for the concert as a thrilling bon voyage gesture to a serious young violinist who had participated widely in San Diego County’s musical community since age 11 when she began playing professionally. Pierce remains an active musician.

She resides with her husband, neuroscientist Tobias Overath and their children, daughter Pip, 9, son Bix, 6, and baby Tig, five months.