{"id":3492,"date":"2021-07-24T22:50:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T02:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/?p=3492"},"modified":"2021-07-24T23:42:06","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T03:42:06","slug":"a-brilliant-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/2021\/a-brilliant-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brilliant Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

In 2013, Elizabeth Meckes (left) was photographed working with a student in her Differential Equations class. Photo by Annie O’Neill<\/p><\/div>\n

Elizabeth Meckes<\/strong> once paused as she was giving a lecture in a graduate course. Standing at a chalkboard in Yost Hall, explaining a famous proof that had made its discoverer\u2019s reputation, she suddenly turned to her students and said, \u201cYou know, when you leave this world, what people are going to remember about you is the work that you did.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those students, Yiting Cao<\/strong> (CWR \u201918; GRS \u201920, mathematics), had taken several classes with Meckes, and she recognized the personal conviction behind her professor\u2019s words. \u201cShe was really dedicated to her work,\u201d Cao recalls. \u201cYou always felt she was trying very hard every second to produce something that could potentially be written in history. And she did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the past several months, the Case Western Reserve community and mathematicians around the world have affirmed Meckes\u2019 legacy while mourning the loss, in Cao\u2019s words, of \u201ca brilliant soul.\u201d Meckes died Dec. 16, 2020, a few weeks after being diagnosed with cancer, at age 40. She is survived by her husband, Mark Meckes<\/strong>, professor in the Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, and their children, Juliette and Peter.<\/p>\n

Meckes was a double alumna of Case Western Reserve, where she earned bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in mathematics. For her doctorate, she studied with Persi Diaconis, a renowned probability theorist, at Stanford University. In a 2018 interview, Meckes described taking upper-level math as an undergraduate and realizing she had found her vocation. \u201cYou can tell when something\u2019s clicking and something\u2019s the right fit for you,\u201d she said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s easy. It just means that it makes sense to you in a way that other things don\u2019t always.\u201d<\/p>\n

After spending a postdoctoral year at Cornell University as an American Institute of Mathematics Fellow, Meckes joined the CWRU faculty in 2007\u2014as did her husband, a double alumnus himself. By 2018, she had been promoted to full professor. Her publications included 28 papers, a linear algebra textbook she wrote with her husband, and a monograph, The Random Matrix Theory of the Classical Compact Groups<\/em>, that was hailed as \u201cbeautiful,\u201d \u201celegant\u201d and \u201cextraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meckes\u2019 devotion to teaching was just as inspiring as her research achievements, Cao says. During office hours, she would go over difficult concepts as many times as needed and reassure her students when they doubted themselves. \u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to be easy,\u201d she would tell them. \u201cIt\u2019s OK to struggle when you\u2019re first learning about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathryn Stewart<\/strong> (GRS \u201919, mathematics), Meckes\u2019 former doctoral advisee, remembers traveling to conferences with her and giving presentations\u2014two things she would not have done without Meckes\u2019 encouragement. \u201cYou could just tell how well known Elizabeth was,\u201d Stewart says. \u201cWe would show up at these conferences, and everyone wanted to talk to her and get her take on what they were working on. Everyone showed up for her talks. You could tell she was very well respected among her peers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart particularly valued Meckes as a role model and advocate for women in mathematics. In 2014, Meckes was an invited lecturer at an annual summer workshop for female mathematicians, hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She belonged to an organization of research mathematicians called Women in Probability and collaborated with its founder, Associate Professor Tai Melcher of the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved doing math with her; I learned a lot working with her, but mostly it was just because we had so much fun,\u201d Melcher says. \u201cShe had a great positive energy, and the way we worked together, the way she worked, reminded me why I enjoy doing what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meckes\u2019 influence also extended beyond the academic world. She appeared twice, for instance, in the newsletter of a nonprofit math club for girls, Girls\u2019 Angle, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Meckes did an extended interview with the director, C. Kenneth Fan, and later wrote an article introducing the club\u2019s members to the laws of probability. The article was illustrated with images of coins; at her request, they were Susan B. Anthony dollars.<\/p>\n

Meckes\u2019 commitment to what she called \u201cmathematical outreach\u201d also prompted her to volunteer with the Math Corps Cleveland, an academic enrichment and mentoring program for local youth. The program\u2019s associate director, Francisca Garc\u00eda-Cobi\u00e1n Richter<\/strong>, is a research assistant professor at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, one of several sites where Math Corps students ordinarily gather on Saturdays during the school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth prepared and delivered beautiful lectures for middle schoolers,\u201d Richter says. \u201cThe first time she taught, she introduced students to knot theory. I remember being impressed with what I could understand, being nervous about what I couldn\u2019t and being thankful that she was challenging us all to think really hard!\u201d<\/p>\n

This spring, two international events for research mathematicians were dedicated to Meckes\u2019 memory. One of them, co-organized by Professor Elisabeth Werner<\/b>, featured a talk by Diaconis, who lectured on topics he and Meckes had worked on together. When he got to the final slide in his Zoom presentation, he acknowledged he had no answer to one of the questions he had raised.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that if I would have told that to Elizabeth, she would have gotten that funny look on her face and said, \u2018I\u2019ll think about it,\u2019\u201d Diaconis told his virtual audience. \u201cAnd she would have. I can\u2019t ask Elizabeth. I can<\/i> <\/i>ask you. One way of keeping Elizabeth alive is to remember the beautiful mathematics that she did, and talk to each other about it the way she would have talked to us about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The Elizabeth S. Meckes Memorial Fund, established by Elizabeth\u2019s and Mark\u2019s families, will support an annual lecture in the Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics. To donate, please visit the college\u2019s giving website: <\/i>artsci.cwru.edu\/development\/making-a-gift<\/i><\/b>. If you use the online form, please select \u201cother\u201d for the designation and type in \u201cElizabeth S. Meckes Memorial Fund.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Meckes<\/strong> once paused as she was giving a lecture in a graduate course. Standing at a chalkboard in Yost Hall, explaining a famous proof that had made its discoverer\u2019s reputation, she suddenly turned to her students and said, \u201cYou know, when you leave this world, what people are going to remember about you is the work that you did.\u201d
\nOne of those students, Yiting Cao<\/strong> (CWR \u201918; GRS \u201920, mathematics), had taken several classes with Meckes, and she recognized the personal conviction behind her professor\u2019s words. …Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":3498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2021\/07\/24225901\/Elizabeth-Meckes_featured.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3492"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3514,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions\/3514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}