Professor Peter Sarnak will receive Princeton's Phi Beta Kappa award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. The award has been given annually since 2004, and the recipients are chosen by undergraduates in the academic honor society. Also receiving this distinction this year is Professor Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology.This honor is awarded based on skill in instruction, commitment to working with and bulding relationships with undergraduates, and ability to spark students' interests. To this end, senior Daniel Kriz had this to say about Sarnak: "Perhaps my favorite undergraduate math class at Princeton was MAT 415 Analytic Number Theory. … [Professor Sarnak] always paid careful attention to make sure the entire class was up to speed during lecture, and the assigned problem sets which he personally devised were not only illuminating and thought-provoking, but (dare I say) fun as well. Moreover, he was more than willing to go over material both after lecture and outside the classroom; I have not met another instructor so happy to meet outside of class, sit down and point to exactly where, how and why my proof was wrong."
