Jesus De Loera was born in Mexico City in 1966. He received his B.S. degree in Mathematics from the National University of Mexico in 1989 and his Ph.D in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in 1995 under the direction of Bernd Sturmfels. An expert in the field of Discrete Mathematics, his work approaches difficult computational problems in Combinatorics and Optimization using non-traditional tools from Algebra and Convex Geometry. Dr. De Loera has held scientific positions at the University of Minnesota, the Swiss Federal Technology Institute (ETH Zurich), the Mathematical Science Institute at Berkeley, and University at Magdeburg (Germany). He arrived at UC Davis in 1999, where he is now a professor of Mathematics as well as a member of the Graduate groups in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. His research has been recognized by an Alexander von Humboldt award and several national and international grants. For his dedication to mentoring and teaching of students, in particular latino minorities and graduate students, he received a 2003 UC Davis Chancellor's fellow award, the 2006 UC Davis award for diversity, and the 2007 Award for excellence in Service to Graduate students by the UC Davis graduate student association. He was also the lead PI of the 3-million-dollar NSF-VIGRE award to the UC Davis mathematics department in 2007.
