Leila Schneps

Schneps earned a B.A. in Mathematics, German Language and Literature from Radcliffe College in 1983. She completed a Doctorat de Troisième Cycle in Mathematics at Université Paris-Sud XI-Orsay in 1985 under the supervision of John H. Coates with a thesis on p-adic L-functions attached to elliptic curves,{{citation

|publisher=Mathematics Genealogy Project

|title=Leila Schneps

|url=http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=57879

|volume=2014

|access-date=2013-12-22

}}{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|date=January 1987

|doi=10.1016/0022-314X(87)90013-8

|number=1

|issn=0022-314X

|title=On the μ-invariant of p-adic L-functions attached to elliptic curves with complex multiplication

|volume=25

|pages=20–33

|journal=Journal of Number Theory

|doi-access=free

}} a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1990 with a thesis on p-Adic L-functions and Galois groups,{{citation

|publisher=Theses.fr

|title=Fonctions l p-adiques, et construction explicite de cetains groupes comme groupes de galois

|url=http://www.theses.fr/1990PA112013

|access-date=2013-12-23

|date=January 1990

|type=These de doctorat

|last1=Schneps

|first1=Leila

|last2=Henniart

|first2=Guy

}}{{citation

|author1=Schneps

|author2=Henniart

|location=[S.l.]

|publisher=Université Paris Sud

|year=1990

|title=Fonctions L p-Adiques, et Construction Explicite de Cetains Groupes Comme Groupes de Galois

|url=http://catalogue.scd.u-psud.fr/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=134789&query_desc=au%3ASchneps%20Leila

|access-date=2013-12-18

}} and Habilitation at Université de Franche-Comté in 1993, with a thesis on the Inverse Galois problem.{{citation

|publisher=Laboratoire de mathématiques de besançon

|title=Archives des habilitations à diriger des recherches (HDR) soutenues au LMB

|trans-title=Archive of Habilitations supported at the LMB

|url=http://lmb.univ-fcomte.fr/article.php3?id_article=510#1993

|access-date=2014-01-01

}}{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|title=Curriculum Vitae

|url=http://www.math.jussieu.fr/~leila/cveng.pdf

|access-date=2013-12-22

}}

Schneps held various teaching assistant positions in France and Germany until the completion of her Ph.D. in 1990, then worked as a postdoctoral assistant at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, for one year. In 1991 she was awarded a tenured research position at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon. During the late 1990s Schneps also had short-term visiting researcher assignments at Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and MSRI at Berkeley.{{citation

|number = 2014–01–02

|publisher = France Berkeley Fund

|title = Grants Awarded in 1998

|url = http://fbf.berkeley.edu/Grantee1998.html

|access-date = 2014-01-02

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140309171424/http://fbf.berkeley.edu/Grantee1998.html

|archive-date = 2014-03-09

}}

Schneps has published academic papers on various aspects of analytic number theory since the late 1980s. Her early work explored p-adic L-functions,{{citation

|author1=Colmez, Pierre

|author2=Schneps, Leila

|number=2

|year=1992

|title=p-adic interpolation of special values of Hecke L-functions

|url=http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/CM/CM_1992__82_2/CM_1992__82_2_143_0/CM_1992__82_2_143_0.pdf

|volume=82

|pages=143–187

|access-date=2014-01-02

|journal=Compositio Mathematica

}} which became the topic of her first thesis, and around 2010 she was continuing to work on the related fields of zeta functions.{{citation

|author1=Brown, Francis

|author2=Carr, Sarah

|author3=Schneps, Leila

|year=2010

|title=The algebra of cell-zeta values

|journal=Compositio Mathematica

|volume=146

|issue=3

|pages=731–771

|arxiv=0910.0122

|bibcode=2009arXiv0910.0122B

|doi=10.1112/S0010437X09004540

|s2cid=16250943

}}

Since the late 1990s she focused on aspects of Galois theory, including Galois groups, geometric Galois actions, and the inverse Galois problem,{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila.

|author2=Lochak, P.

|location=Cambridge; New York

|publisher=Cambridge University Press

|year=1997

|isbn=9780521596411

|title=2. The Inverse Galois Problem, Moduli Spaces and Mapping Class Groups

|volume=242-243

|series=London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series

}} and has been described by Jordan Ellenberg as "the arithmetic geometer ... who taught me most of what I know about Galois actions on fundamental groups of varieties".{{citation

|author1=Ellenberg, Jordan

|number=2013–05–27

|title=Math on Trial, by Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez

|url=http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/math-on-trial-by-leila-schneps-and-coralie-colmez/

|volume=2014

|access-date=2013-12-30

|date=2013-03-28

}} Her work led to her study of the related Grothendieck–Teichmüller group,{{citation

|author1=Harbater, David

|author2=Schneps, Leila

|doi=10.1090/S0002-9947-00-02347-3

|number=7

|year=2000

|issn=0002-9947

|title=Fundamental groups of moduli and the Grothendieck–Teichmüller group

|url=https://www.ams.org/journals/tran/2000-352-07/S0002-9947-00-02347-3/S0002-9947-00-02347-3.pdf

|volume=352

|pages=3117–3149

|access-date=2013-12-31

|journal=Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.

|doi-access=free

}}{{citation

|author1=Lochak, Pierre

|author2=Schneps, Leila

|year=2006

|title=Open problems in Grothendieck–Teichmüller theory

|volume=75

|pages=165–186

|journal=Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics

|doi=10.1090/pspum/074/2264540

|isbn=9780821838389

|citeseerx=10.1.1.511.6401

}}{{citation

|author1=Lochak, Pierre

|author2=Schneps, Leila

|date=2013

|title=Grothendieck–Teichmüller groups

|url=http://www.newton.ac.uk/programmes/GDO/lectureseries.html#grothendieck

|access-date=2014-01-02

|journal=Grothendieck–Teichmüller Groups, Deformation and Operads

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140309171621/http://www.newton.ac.uk/programmes/GDO/lectureseries.html#grothendieck

|archive-date=2014-03-09

|url-status=dead

}}{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|publisher=SMF/AMS Texts and Monographs

|year=2003

|isbn=978-0-8218-3167-0

|title=Fundamental groupoids of genus zero moduli spaces and braided tensor categories

|url=http://www.math.jussieu.fr/~leila/leila.ps

|access-date=2014-01-02

|journal=Moduli Spaces of Curves, Mapping Class Groups and Field Theory

}} and she has become a member of a group preserving the works and history of Grothendieck. In the early 2010s she published research investigating various aspects of Lie algebras.{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|date=2012-01-25

|title=Double Shuffle and Kashiwara–Vergne Lie algebras

|arxiv=1201.5316

|bibcode=2012arXiv1201.5316S

}}{{citation

|author1=Baumard, Samuel

|author2=Schneps, Leila

|date=2011-09-17

|title=Period polynomial relations between double zeta values

|journal=The Ramanujan Journal

|volume=32

|pages=83–100

|arxiv=1109.3786

|bibcode=2011arXiv1109.3786B

|doi=10.1007/s11139-013-9466-2

|s2cid=55057070

}}{{citation

|author1=Baumard, Samuel

|author2=Schneps, Leila

|year=2013

|title=Relations dans l'algèbre de Lie fondamentale des motifs elliptiques mixtes

|arxiv=1310.5833

|bibcode=2013arXiv1310.5833B

}}

Schneps has also edited and contributed to several mathematics textbooks in number theory. She edited a series of lecture notes on Grothendieck's theory of dessins d'enfants{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|location=london

|publisher=Cambridge University PRess

|year=1994

|isbn=9780521478212

|title=The Grothendieck Theory of Dessins d'Enfants

|volume=200

|journal=London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series

}} and contributed an article to the series,{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|year=1994

|title=Dessins d'enfants on the Riemann Sphere

|url=http://www.math.jussieu.fr/~leila/Fschneps.pdf

|volume=200

|pages=47–78

|journal=The Grothendieck Theory of Dessins d'Enfants

|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511569302.004

|isbn=9780511569302

}} was an editor for a text on the Inverse Galois Problem, and edited a book on Galois groups.{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|location=Cambridge, U.K.; New York

|publisher=Cambridge University Press

|year=2003

|isbn=978-0521808316

|title=Galois groups and fundamental groups

|volume=Mathematical Sciences Research Institute publications; 41

}} She was a co-author of a text on Field Theory{{citation

|author1=Buff, Xavier

|author2=Fehrenbach, Jérôme

|author3=Lochak, Pierre

|author4=Schneps, Leila

|author5=Vogel, Pierre

|publisher=AMS and SMF

|year=2003

|isbn=978-0-8218-3167-0

|title=Moduli Spaces of Curves, Mapping Class Groups and Field Theory

|volume=9

}} and co-editor of another on Galois–Teichmüller Theory.{{citation

|editor1=Nakamura, Hiroaki

|editor2=Pop, Florian

|editor3=Schneps, Leila

|display-editors = 3 |editor4=Tamagawa, Akio

|location=Tokyo

|publisher=Kinokuniya

|year=2012

|isbn=978-4-86497-014-3

|title=Galois–Teichmüller Theory and Arithmetic Geometry

|volume=63

}}

In 2013, Schneps and her daughter, mathematician Coralie Colmez, published the book Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom.{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|author2=Colmez, Coralie

|location=New York

|publisher=Basic Books

|year=2013

|isbn=978-0465032921

|title=Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom

}} Targeted at a general audience, the book uses ten historical legal cases to show how mathematics, especially statistics, can affect the outcome of criminal proceedings, especially when incorrectly applied or interpreted. The mathematical concepts covered include statistical independence (discussed using the examples of the Sally Clark case and the murder of Meredith Kercher), Simpson's paradox (UC Berkeley gender bias case) and statistical modeling using a binomial distribution (Howland will forgery trial).

While not written as a textbook, some reviewers found it suitable for students, as an introduction to the topic and to "get them thinking, talking and even arguing about the issues involved",{{citation

|author1=Hayden, Robert

|date=2013-12-24

|title=Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom

|url=http://www.maa.org/publications/maa-reviews/math-on-trial-how-numbers-get-used-and-abused-in-the-courtroom

|journal=MAA Reviews

}} with another agreeing that, "they have struck the right balance of providing enough mathematics for the specialist to check out the details, but not so much as to overwhelm the general reader",{{cite news

|author1=Hill, Ray

|publisher=London Mathematical Society

|journal=Newsletter of London Mathematical Society

|title=Review: Math on Trial

|url=https://www.lms.ac.uk/sites/lms.ac.uk/files/files/428%20-%20Sept%202013.pdf#page=16

|volume=428

|access-date=2014-02-08

|date=September 2013

}} and another finding the book suitable "for parents trying to support teenagers in their studies of mathematics – or in fact, law".{{cite journal

|author1=Tarttelin, Abigail

|year=2013

|journal=Huffington Post Blog

|title=Book Review: Math On Trial by Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez

|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/abigail-tarttelin/book-review-math-on-trial_b_2994833.html

|access-date=2014-02-08}}

While most reviews were positive, there was some criticism concerning its over-simplification of mathematics' influence in complex trial proceedings. One reviewer finds that, while the book's description of the weakness of some mathematics presented in courtrooms is valid, the text magnifies mathematics' role in legal proceedings, which traditionally feature evidentiary analysis at appellate as well as trial stages and have preexisting standards for treating certain types of evidence.{{citation

|author1=Finkelstein, Michael

|date=Jul–Aug 2013

|number=6

|title=Quantitative Evidence Often a Tough Sell in Court

|url=http://www.siam.org/pdf/news/2091.pdf

|volume=46

|journal=SIAM News

|access-date=2014-03-09

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160416071151/http://www.siam.org/pdf/news/2091.pdf

|archive-date=2016-04-16

|url-status=dead

}} Another suggests the book was influenced by the authors' selection of cases to show a "disastrous record of causing judicial error", thus attributing insufficient weight to the counterbalancing traditionally inherent in legal proceedings—as lawyers attack opposing evidence and experts with their own, and appellate judges write to influence the conduct of trial judges faced with various types of ordinary and expert testimony.{{citation

|author1=Edelman, Paul

|number=7

|year=2013

|title=Burden of Proof: A Review of Math on Trial

|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/201307/rnoti-p910.pdf

|volume=60

|access-date=2013-12-22

|pages=910–914

|journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society

|doi=10.1090/noti1024

|doi-access=free

}}

Schneps has produced English-language translations of several French-language books and papers, including Invitation to the mathematics of Fermat-Wiles,{{citation

|author1=Hellegouarch, Yves

|location=London

|publisher=Academic Press

|year=2002

|isbn=978-0-12-339251-0

|title=Invitation to the Mathematics of Fermat-Wiles

}} Galois theory,{{citation

|author1=Escofier, Jean-Pierre.

|location=New York

|publisher=Springer

|year=2001

|isbn=978-0387987651

|title=Galois theory

|url=https://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0816/00041906-t.html

|volume=Graduate texts in mathematics; 204

|access-date=2013-12-30

}} A Mathematician Grappling With His Century,{{citation

|author1=Schwartz, Laurent.

|location=Basel; Boston

|publisher=Birkhäuser

|year=2001

|isbn=978-3764360528

|title=A mathematician grappling with his century

}} Hodge Theory and Complex Algebraic Geometry II,{{citation

|author1=Voisin, Claire

|location=Cambridge; New York

|publisher=Cambridge University Press

|year=2002

|isbn=978-0521802833

|title=Hodge theory and complex algebraic geometry

|url=https://www.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam033/2002017389.html

|volume=Cambridge studies in advanced mathematics; 76-77

}} p-adic L-Functions and p-Adic Representations,{{citation

|author1=Perrin-Riou, Bernadette.

|location=Providence, RI

|publisher=American Mathematical Society

|year=2000

|isbn=978-0821819463

|title=p-adic L-functions and p-adic representations

|volume=SMF/AMS texts and monographs, v. 3

}} and Renormalization methods : critical phenomena, chaos, fractal structures.{{citation

|author1=Lesne, Annick.

|location=Chichester; New York

|publisher=J. Wiley

|year=1998

|isbn=978-0471966890

|title=Renormalization methods : critical phenomena, chaos, fractal structures

|url=https://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/wiley033/97043772.html

}}

Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck became a recluse in 1991 and removed his published works from circulation. More than a decade later, Schneps and Pierre Lochak located him in a town in the Pyrenees, then carried on a correspondence. Thus they became among "the last members of the mathematical establishment to come into contact with him".{{citation

|author1=Leith, Sam

|date=2004-03-20

|title=The Einstein of maths

|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/12036/the-einstein-of-maths/

|access-date=2014-01-03

|journal=The Spectator

}} Schneps became a founding member of the Grothendieck Circle, a group dedicated to making information by and about Grothendieck available, and created and maintains the Grothendieck Circle website, a repository of information regarding Grothendieck, including his own unpublished writings.{{Cite web|url=http://www.grothendieckcircle.org/|title=Grothendieck Circle|website=www.grothendieckcircle.org|access-date=2019-12-26}} She also assisted with the translation of his correspondence with Jean-Pierre Serre.{{citation

|author2=Serre, Jean-Pierre

|author1=Grothendieck, A.

|location=Providence, R.I.

|publisher=American Mathematical Society

|year=2004

|isbn=9780821834244

|title=Grothendieck–Serre correspondence

}}

In 2004, Schneps published (as Catherine Shaw) The Three Body Problem, a Cambridge Mystery,{{citation

|author1=Shaw, Catherine

|publisher=Long Preston

|year=2005

|isbn=978-0750522892

|title=The three body problem : a Cambridge mystery

}} a murder mystery novel involving mathematicians in Cambridge in the late 1800s, working on the three-body problem. The title is a double entendre, referring to both the mathematical problem and the three murder victims. While a mathematician reviewing the book disliked the Victorian writing style, he found the math accurate, and the mathematicians' personalities and sociology "well portrayed".{{citation

|author1=Montgomery, Richard

|date=October 2006

|number=9

|title=The Three Body Problem, A Cambridge Mystery

|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/200609/rev-montgomery.pdf

|volume=53

|pages=1031–1034

|journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society

}} When another reviewer contacted the author, she confirmed that Catherine Shaw was a pseudonym and that she was actually an academic and practicing mathematician but preferred to remain anonymous.{{citation

|author1=Kasman, Alex

|year=2004

|title=The Three Body Problem

|url=http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf523

|journal=Mathematical Fiction

|access-date=2013-12-31

}} It has since been revealed that Catherine Shaw is the pseudonym of Leila Schneps.{{citation

|number=2014–01–03

|publisher=Library of Congress

|year=2009

|title=Shaw, Catherine, 1961-

|url=http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2007150507.html

}}

Schneps, as Catherine Shaw, has published four historical novels in the series, all featuring the same main character Vanessa Duncan, and all following mathematical themes:

• Flowers Stained with Moonlight{{citation

|author1=Shaw, Catherine

|location=London

|publisher=Allison & Busby

|year=2005

|isbn=978-0749083083

|title=Flowers stained with moonlight

|url=https://archive.org/details/flowersstainedwi0000shaw

}} was called a mystery that was "very easy to solve", as the book's title is from a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas,{{citation

|author1=Douglas, Lord Alfred

|number=1

|year=1984

|title=Two Loves

|volume=1

|journal=The Chameleon

}} which strongly hits at the solution to the crime.{{citation

|author1=Nesvet, Rebecca

|date=May 2005

|title=Review: Flowers Stained with Moonlight

|url=http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/review.html?id=5014

}}

• The Library Paradox{{citation

|author1=Shaw, Catherine.

|location=London

|publisher=Allison & Busby

|year=2007

|isbn=9780749080105

|title=The library paradox

}} also has a double entendre title, as the story is a classic locked room mystery set in a library, but also alludes to Russell's paradox, which arises from the question of whether a library catalog should include itself in its contents. The murder victim in the story was antisemitic, and the story mentions the Dreyfus affair and explores the issues of "being Jewish in 1896 London".{{citation

|author1=Gill, Sunnie

|date=July 2007

|title=Review: The Library Paradox

|url=http://www.eurocrime.co.uk/reviews/The_Library_Paradox.html

}}{{citation

|author1=Kasman, Alex

|publisher=Mathematical Fiction

|title=Review: The Library Paradox

|url=http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf560

}}

• The Riddle of the River{{citation

|author1=Shaw, Catherine

|location=New York

|publisher=Felony & Mayhem Press

|year=2009

|isbn=9781934609330

|title=The riddle of the river

|url=https://archive.org/details/riddleofriver00shaw

}} explores "the theatre world, the late 19th century craze for séances, [and] the Marconi revolution which will lead to the invention of the telegraph".{{citation

|date=2013-12-30

|publisher=Historical Novel Society

|title=Review: The Riddle of the River

|url=http://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/the-riddle-of-the-river/

}}

• Fatal Inheritance{{citation

|author1=Shaw, Catherine

|publisher=Allison & Busby

|year=2013

|isbn=978-0749013226

|title=Fatal Inheritance

}} explores "the importance of heredity and how it might influence the nation's health; Dr Freud's latest theories; and ... the dubious 'science' of eugenics".{{citation

|publisher=Historical Novel Society

|year=2013

|title=Review: Fatal Inheritance

|url=http://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/fatal-inheritance/

}}

As Shaw, Schneps has also published a non-fiction guide to solving Sudoku and Kakuro puzzles.{{citation

|author1=Shaw, Catherine

|publisher=Allison & Busby

|year=2007

|title=How To Solve Sudoko & Kakuro

}}

File:Leila Schneps giving a lecture.jpg

Schneps promotes public awareness of the importance of the proper use of mathematics and statistics in criminal proceedings.{{citation

|author1=Schneps, Leila

|author2=Colmez, Coralie

|date=2013-03-26

|title=Justice Flunks Math

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/opinion/when-judges-cant-do-math-justice-suffers.html?_r=0

|volume=The Opinion Pages

|journal=The New York Times

}} Schneps is a member of the Bayes and the Law International Consortium.{{citation

|author1=Fenton, Norman

|date=2013-12-30

|title=Bayes and the Law

|url=https://sites.google.com/site/bayeslegal/

}}

Coralie Colmez is the daughter of Schneps and Pierre Colmez.{{cite news |url= https://www.economist.com/prospero/2013/05/02/allow-me-to-explain-your-honour |publisher=The Economist |title= Allow me to explain, Your Honour |date=2 May 2013 |access-date=2 October 2020}}{{cite web |url= https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/interview-with-unifrog-founder-coralie-colmez.html |title= The Mathematician Who Moonlights As a Rock-Band Violinist |first=Diana |last=Tsui |publisher=The Cut |date=9 January 2018 |access-date=2 October 2020}}

{{Reflist|2}}

• [http://www.math.jussieu.fr/~leila Website]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schneps, Leila}}

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American mathematicians

Category:21st-century American mathematicians

Category:1961 births

Category:Radcliffe College alumni

Category:People from Waltham, Massachusetts

Category:Mathematicians from Massachusetts

Category:20th-century American women mathematicians

Category:21st-century American women mathematicians

Category:Academic staff of ETH Zurich

Category:21st-century American novelists

Category:21st-century American translators

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Category:University of Paris alumni