The Householder Prize 2025 goes to Alice Cortinovis

Undergraduate student in Mathematics at the Scuola Normale from 2013 to 2018, Alice won the prize awarded for the best PhD theses in numerical linear algebra.

PISA, 4th July 2025. Alice Cortinovis, an undergraduate student in Mathematics at the Scuola Normale from 2013 to 2018, and since September of last year a researcher in Numerical Analysis at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pisa, was awarded the prestigious Householder Prize (2025) for the bestPhD thesis in the sector of numerical linear algebra completed in the three years preceding the assigning of the prize.

The prize was awarded to Alice at a ceremony held during the XXII Householder Symposium at Cornell University (USA) in June. Her PhD thesis, titled "Fast deterministic and randomized algorithms for low-rank approximation, matrix functions, and trace estimation", was completed at the École Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne (EPFL) under the supervision of Daniel Kressner in 2022.

After attaining her PhD and before returning to Pisa, Alice Cortinovis occupied the role of Szegö Assistant Professor at Stanford University (USA).

The previous winners of the Householder Prize include another student of the Scuola Normale, Stefano Massei, a PhD student at the Scuola Normale from 2013 to 2017, who was awarded the prize in 2020 and who is now an associate professor of Numerical Analysis at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Pisa.

The Householder Prize is a prestigious international award assigned every three years to the best PhD thesis in numerical linear algebra. It is named after Alston S. Householder, an American mathematician and a pioneer in numerical linear algebra.