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American mathematician From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Duncan MacPherson (born May 25, 1944) is an American mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Robert MacPherson | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Swarthmore College Harvard University |
Known for | Intersection homology |
Awards | NAS Award in Mathematics (1992) Leroy P. Steele Prize (2002) Heinz Hopf Prize (2009) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Brown University Princeton University |
Doctoral advisor | Raoul Bott |
Doctoral students | Mark Goresky David Nadler Julianna Tymoczko Kari Vilonen Zhiwei Yun |
Robert Duncan MacPherson was born in Lakewood, Ohio on May 25, 1944.[1]
He received his bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1966.[1] MacPherson received his PhD from Harvard in 1970 with a thesis, written under the direction of Raoul Bott, entitled Singularities of Maps and Characteristic Classes.[2]
MacPherson was at Brown University as a J. D. Tamarkin Instructor from 1970 to 1972, an assistant professor from 1972 to 1974, an associate professor from 1974 to 1977, and then a professor from 1977 to 1987.[1] He was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1987 to 1994.[1] He became a professor of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994, later becoming named a Hermann Weyl Professor.[1] He retired and became a professor emeritus 2018.[1]
His notable doctoral students include Mark Goresky, David Nadler, Julianna Tymoczko, Kari Vilonen, and Zhiwei Yun.[2]
MacPherson and Goresky introduced intersection homology.[3] He also worked on arithmetic groups, in particular on Siegel modular threefolds with Mark McConnell and on compactifications of symmetric spaces with Lizhen Ji.[4]
In 1983, MacPherson gave a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
In 1992, MacPherson was awarded the NAS Award in Mathematics from the National Academy of Sciences.[5] In 2002, he and Goresky were awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research by the American Mathematical Society.[6][7] In 2009 he received the Heinz Hopf Prize from ETH Zurich.[1]
In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[8] He is also a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[1]
He received honorary doctorates from the University of Lille in 1993 and Brown University in 1994.[1]
MacPherson's PhD advisee, Mark Goresky, later became his life partner.[3] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were instrumental in channeling aid to Russian mathematicians, especially many who had to hide their sexuality.[3]
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