Ariel and Me Spot and Me
My full name is Nathanael Leedom Ackerman. I am the oldest son of Joanne and Peter Ackerman. I have one brother, Elliot (two years younger), and two cats (named Ariel and Spot). My mom is a writer, and has published two books - No Marble Angles, and Dark Path to the River. My dad is a private investor, and has written one book - Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century This which has been turned into a documentary film called A Force More Powerful which was nominated for an Emmy for the best documentary in 2001 and which had a sequel called Bringing Down a Dictator.
I was born on March 4, 1978 in New York. I moved to California before I turned 1 year old where I lived in Westwood, a suburb of Los Angles. I went to Montessori of West L.A. through the 4 th grade. I then went to U.E.S. (an elementary school run by U.C.L.A.) until half way through 6 th grade when my family moved from L.A (January 1990). We moved to London, England where we remained until I graduated High School at the American School in London in 1995. While there I wrestled for 5 years and was salutatorian of my graduating class.
I then went to Harvard University where I graduated Magna Cum Laude in Mathematics in June 2000 and wrestled for another 5 years. While at Harvard I also volunteered with the Committee on Deaf Awareness for 4 years and ran the program my senior year. My senior year I also started the Harvard Committee on the Blind which I was a director of for 3 years (and which I helped out with for several years afterwards). In addition for the last 7 years I have been volunteering a the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter (UniLu) when I have had the time.
In 1998 I became a dual British and American citizen and began wrestling for Great Britain. I have wrestled in 5 world championships, 6 European Championships, 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England (where I competed for England) and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. My best result so far has been 16th in the 1999 world championships in Ankra, Turkey and a 9th place in the European Championships in 2005 (also in Ankra, Turkey).
I also recently graduated from M.I.T. with a PhD in Mathematics. My thesis advisor was Professor Gerald Sacks (who also was my thesis advisor at Harvard). My thesis has two parts. The first part constructs theories with small quantifier ranks whose quantifier rank spectrum is unbounded in an arbitrary ordinal (this is done by modifying Robin Knight's recent counter example to Vaught's conjecture). The second part of my dissertation proves a generalization of the Suslin-Kleene separation in the context of sheaves on a site.
You are welcome to visit my (Nate's) home page
or you can e-mail me at: webpage@n-l-a.net
This page was last modified on June 06, 2006