Rappaport

In the Phyllis Cohen Rappaport ’68 New Century Term Professorship, they have done just that.

“This was an example of working with the college to design a professorship that would serve both our goals well,” Phyllis said. “That’s why this gift makes us so happy.”

Specifically, the professorship is designed to fund a trailblazing junior faculty member to support his or her innovative research and curricular development for three or four years.

For the Rappaports, the criteria is perfectly aligned with the Foundation’s tradition of celebrating and supporting up-and-coming, uniquely innovative talent. And for Smith, it’s an opportunity to encourage young professors to think boldly in their respective fields.

“What’s beautiful about the way the Rappaports approach their philanthropy is that they understand the importance of recognizing talent,” said Beth Raffeld, Senior Vice President for Alumnae Relations and Development at Smith. “Smith still very much honors and appreciates the tenure process, which is there to allow young professors to distinguish themselves, to earn their stripes.

“This opportunity the Rappaports have provided allows a young star to be recognized early in one’s career.”

The young star, in this case, is mathematics professor Patricia Cahn, who in 2019 was named the inaugural recipient of the Rappaport Professorship.

And though the Rappaports themselves have nothing to do with the selection process, the first winner undoubtedly earned the family’s stamp of approval. Not only is Professor Cahn a Smith graduate herself and an accomplished double bass player (the Rappaports’ appreciation of the arts once included a prize for music composition), but Phyllis’s mother was likewise a math major in college, and later taught math.

In addition to a Smith undergraduate degree, Professor Cahn’s resume includes earning a PhD in math at Dartmouth before becoming a Hans Rademacher Instructor at the University of Pennsylvania and a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany.

Her biography will tell you that she uses algebraic invariants to detect information about intersections and linking of topological objects as part of her research in geometric and low-dimensional topology. And in particular, she has studied curves on surfaces, linking of knots in three-manifolds and knot theory under geometric constraints, including contact topology.

In layperson’s terms?

Well, for one, she’s interested in using knot theory (the study of mathematical knots, by which the ends are joined together) to build three- and four-dimensional spaces.

Whereby classifying all the finite two-dimensional shapes is a problem that most undergraduate math majors could understand, the three-dimensional version of that problem is, as one might expect, significantly more complex.

Even so, “We actually have a fairly good idea of what the possible three-dimensional spaces are,” Professor Cahn said, “but for four dimensions, some of the most basic questions are still unknown.”

The Rappaport funding allows her to further explore that problem with other mathematicians from around the world, and to bring some of her Smith students into those research conversations with her.

“I really enjoy the process and then getting to share the excitement of discovering something new with the students,” she said. “Smith really values both research and teaching, and Smith students are really energetic and curious.

“So it feels like this award is designed the support that.”

And as much as Professor Cahn is excited by her students, that feeling is widely reciprocated, according to Vice President Raffeld.

“Isn’t it fun to meet a professor like that, who clearly lives and breathes the excitement of math?” she said. “At Smith, math is cool.”

Professor Cahn said the award is significant not just for the affirmation it conveys and opportunities for exploration that it allows, but in terms of future possibilities – both for her and her students.

“Math is about collaborations, so being able to form more collaborations now will be helpful in five and 10 years from now,” she said. “As opposed to an award that looks back on a career, this one looks toward the future.”

Indeed, it’s a prize that has found the perfect balance between the philanthropists and the recipient. It looks toward the future, which is what the Rappaports do. And it serves the present, educating women for lives of promise and distinction, which is what Smith does.

“This professorship,” Vice President Raffeld said, “is truly impacting the quality of distinguished teaching at Smith.”