Baruch Mathematician Receives National Science Foundation CAREER Award

July 27, 2026

Baruch College Associate Professor Guy Moshkovitz, PhD, has received a $440,826 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance a new area of mathematics with broad applications in theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and other fields that rely on analyzing high-dimensional data. His research focuses on developing a theory of ranks in higher-order ("multilinear") algebra, extending the standard notion of matrix rank taught in college linear algebra.

The NSF CAREER award is one of the top honors for early-career faculty members who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. Only two CAREER awards are typically awarded each year in Professor Moshkovitz's field of combinatorics.

Professor Moshkovitz, who teaches mathematics at the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, said the award is especially meaningful because it's rare for CAREER awards to recognize research programs in emerging areas rather than in more traditional lines of work. Professor Moshkovitz's research on tensor ranks bridges mathematics and theoretical computer science.

"Since this area is still so new, I've been working outside of mainstream combinatorics as I've built my research program over the past five years, even though this work touches on many fundamental questions in different mathematical fields," Moshkovitz said. "Receiving the CAREER award is a gratifying capstone to this work so far and a great motivation to continue pushing the study of tensor ranks forward."

Moshkovitz's research has been published in flagship journals and conferences like Duke Mathematical Journal, Geometric and Functional Analysis, Advances in Mathematics, the annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, and the IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, and his work has been featured in Quanta Magazine. His recent paper with MIT graduate student Dora Woodruff was chosen as the Best Paper at the international Computational Complexity Conference 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Building New Mathematical Tools

For more than a century, linear algebra-the mathematics of equations, vectors, and matrices-has provided the foundation for advances in engineering, medical imaging, computing, and machine learning.

Moshkovitz's research seeks to extend those mathematical foundations by developing new tools for understanding higher-dimensional matrices, also known as tensors, which can represent complex relationships that traditional mathematical methods cannot fully capture.

The project has three primary goals:

• Address fundamental questions in additive combinatorics and higher-order Fourier analysis - which have challenged researchers for decades - by using tools recently developed in the study of tensor ranks.
• Expand the use of tensor-based methods for solving problems related to communication, computation, and algorithms.
• Discover connections between tensor theory, graph theory, and other areas of mathematics, deepening our understanding of these powerful mathematical structures.

Expanding Opportunities for Students

Beyond advancing mathematical research, the CAREER award will fund more opportunities for students and strengthen collaborations across the mathematical community.

As part of the project, Moshkovitz will establish a virtual seminar in partnership with the Mathematical Association of America's Math Horizons magazine that will help prepare students for independent research by producing an in-depth analysis of important advances in combinatorics and theoretical computer science.

At Baruch, Moshkovitz will continue mentoring students through the College's Research Experience for Undergraduates Program. The award will also support CUNY doctoral students studying tensor ranks, expanding opportunities for emerging mathematicians while strengthening Baruch's growing research community.