Gabilan Distinguished Professor
of Science and Engineering

Professor of Mathematics

Dean’s Leadership Fellow for Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Director of Graduate Studies

Contact information

EMAIL : shassaf@usc.edu
OFFICE : KAP 438C
PHONE : (213) 740-2440
MAILING ADDRESS :
Department of Mathematics
University of Southern California
3620 Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90089-2532
United States of America

Sami Assaf

Education

  • Ph. D. Mathematics, University of California Berkeley, 2007
  • B.A. Honors Mathematics and Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 2001
  • North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, 1997

Academic Appointments

  • Professor of Mathematics, University of Southern California, 2022–present
  • Associate Professor of Mathematics, University of Southern California, 2019–2022
  • Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Southern California, 2012–2019
  • CLE Moore Instructor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008–2011
  • NSF Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Pennsylvania, 2007 — 2008

Selected Publications

  • Sami Assaf, Nonsymmetric Macdonald polynomials and a refinement of Kostka–Foulkes polynomials, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370 (2018), no. 12, 8777–8796
  • Sami Assaf and Dominic Searles, Schubert polynomials, slide polynomials, Stanley symmetric functions and quasi-Yamanouchi pipe dreams, Adv. in Math. 306 (2017), 89–122.
  • Sami Assaf, Dual equivalence graphs I: A new paradigm for Schur positivity, Forum Math. Sigma 3 (2015), e12, 33 pp.
  • Sami Assaf, Persi Diaconis, and K. Soundararajan, A rule of thumb for riffle shuffles, Ann. Appl. Probab. 21 (2011), no. 3, 843–875.

Curriculum Vitae

Professor Assaf’s research is currently supported by the following:

National Science Foundation

Division of Mathematical Sciences
Research Grant DMS-2246785

Simons Foundation

Collaboration Grants for Mathematicians
Award 524477

Women in Science and Engineering

Gabilan Distinguished Professor
of Science and Engineering

If a ‘religion’ is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.

— John Barrow