List of Jewish American mathematicians
Encyclopedia
This is a list of famous Jewish American mathematicians. For other famous Jewish Americans, see List of Jewish Americans.
- Milton AbramowitzMilton AbramowitzMilton Abramowitz was a mathematician at the National Bureau of Standards who, with Irene Stegun, edited a classic book of mathematical tables called Handbook of Mathematical Functions, widely known as Abramowitz and Stegun. Abramowitz died of a heart attack in 1958, at which time the book was not...
, mathematician * - Abraham Adrian AlbertAbraham Adrian AlbertAbraham Adrian Albert was an American mathematician. In 1939, he received the first American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on Riemann matrices...
- Kenneth AppelKenneth AppelKenneth Ira Appel is a mathematician who in 1976, with colleague Wolfgang Haken at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, solved one of the most famous problems in mathematics, the four-color theorem...
, four-color problem http://www.jinfo.org/Computer_Scientists.html - Richard BellmanRichard BellmanRichard Ernest Bellman was an American applied mathematician, celebrated for his invention of dynamic programming in 1953, and important contributions in other fields of mathematics.-Biography:...
, dynamic programming * - Lipman BersLipman BersLipman Bers was an American mathematician born in Riga who created the theory of pseudoanalytic functions and worked on Riemann surfaces and Kleinian groups.-Biography:...
, non-linear elliptic equations http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Bers.html - Salomon BochnerSalomon BochnerSalomon Bochner was an American mathematician of Austrian-Hungarian origin, known for wide-ranging work in mathematical analysis, probability theory and differential geometry.- Life :...
, harmonic analysis * - Raoul BottRaoul BottRaoul Bott, FRS was a Hungarian mathematician known for numerous basic contributions to geometry in its broad sense...
, geometry (Jewish mother) * - Richard BrauerRichard BrauerRichard Dagobert Brauer was a leading German and American mathematician. He worked mainly in abstract algebra, but made important contributions to number theory...
, modular representation theory * - Eugenio CalabiEugenio CalabiEugenio Calabi is a Italian American mathematician and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in differential geometry, partial differential equations and their applications....
, differential geometry * - Paul CohenPaul Cohen (mathematician)Paul Joseph Cohen was an American mathematician best known for his proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice from Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, the most widely accepted axiomatization of set theory.-Early years:Cohen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, into a...
, set theorist, Fields MedalFields MedalThe Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
(1966) * - Richard CourantRichard CourantRichard Courant was a German American mathematician.- Life :Courant was born in Lublinitz in the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia. During his youth, his parents had to move quite often, to Glatz, Breslau, and in 1905 to Berlin. He stayed in Breslau and entered the university there...
* - George DantzigGeorge DantzigGeorge Bernard Dantzig was an American mathematical scientist who made important contributions to operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics....
, simplex algorithm * - Martin DavisMartin DavisMartin David Davis, is an American mathematician, known for his work on Hilbert's tenth problem . He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1950, where his adviser was Alonzo Church . He is Professor Emeritus at New York University. He is the co-inventor of the Davis-Putnam and the DPLL...
, mathematician * - Persi DiaconisPersi DiaconisPersi Warren Diaconis is an American mathematician and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University....
, statistician (Jewish mother) * - Jesse DouglasJesse DouglasJesse Douglas was an American mathematician. He was born in New York and attended Columbia College of Columbia University from 1920–1924. Douglas was one of two winners of the first Fields Medals, awarded in 1936. He was honored for solving, in 1930, the problem of Plateau, which asks whether a...
, mathematician, Fields MedalFields MedalThe Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
(1936) http://www.jinfo.org/Fields_Mathematics.html - Samuel EilenbergSamuel EilenbergSamuel Eilenberg was a Polish and American mathematician of Jewish descent. He was born in Warsaw, Russian Empire and died in New York City, USA, where he had spent much of his career as a professor at Columbia University.He earned his Ph.D. from University of Warsaw in 1936. His thesis advisor...
, category theorist * - Noam ElkiesNoam ElkiesNoam David Elkies is an American mathematician and chess master.At age 14, Elkies received a gold medal with a perfect score at the International Mathematical Olympiad, the youngest ever to do so...
, mathematician - Charles FeffermanCharles FeffermanCharles Louis Fefferman is an American mathematician at Princeton University. His primary field of research is mathematical analysis....
, mathematician, Fields Medal (1978) * - Mitchell FeigenbaumMitchell FeigenbaumMitchell Jay Feigenbaum is a mathematical physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constants.- Biography :...
, chaos theorist http://www.jinfo.org/Wolf_Physics.html - William FellerWilliam FellerWilliam Feller born Vilibald Srećko Feller , was a Croatian-American mathematician specializing in probability theory.-Early life and education:...
, probability theory - Michael FreedmanMichael FreedmanMichael Hartley Freedman is a mathematician at Microsoft Station Q, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1986, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. Freedman and Robion Kirby showed that an exotic R4 manifold exists.Freedman was born...
, mathematician, Fields Medal (1986) (Jewish father) * - Dorian Goldfeld, number theorist, Cole Prize *
- Michael GolombMichael GolombMichael Golomb was an American mathematician and educator who was affiliated with Purdue University for over half a century. He was a student of Erhard Schmidt and Adolf Hammerstein, and received his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1933. However, as a Jew, he had to leave Germany...
, theory of approximation http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/010216.Nat.Ahlbrandt.book.html - Solomon Golomb, polyominoPolyominoA polyomino is a plane geometric figure formed by joining one or more equal squares edge to edge. It is a polyform whose cells are squares. It may be regarded as a finite subset of the regular square tiling with a connected interior....
es http://www.jinfo.org/Computer_Scientists.html - Paul HalmosPaul HalmosPaul Richard Halmos was a Hungarian-born American mathematician who made fundamental advances in the areas of probability theory, statistics, operator theory, ergodic theory, and functional analysis . He was also recognized as a great mathematical expositor.-Career:Halmos obtained his B.A...
, mathematician * - E. Morton JellinekE. Morton JellinekElvin Morton "Bunky" Jellinek , E. Morton Jellinek, or most often, E. M. Jellinek, was a biostatistician, physiologist, and an alcoholism researcher. He was born in New York City and died at the desk of his study at Stanford University on 22 October 1963. He was fluent in nine languages and could...
, biostatistician http://www.roizen.com/ron/rr11.htm - Irving KaplanskyIrving KaplanskyIrving Kaplansky was a Canadian mathematician.-Biography:He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, after his parents emigrated from Poland and attended the University of Toronto as an undergraduate. After receiving his Ph.D...
, mathematician * - Mark KacMark KacMark Kac was a Polish mathematician. His main interest was probability theory. His question, "Can one hear the shape of a drum?" set off research into spectral theory, with the idea of understanding the extent to which the spectrum allows one to read back the geometry. Kac completed his Ph.D...
, mathematician * - Edward KasnerEdward KasnerEdward Kasner who studied under Cassius Jackson Keyser, was a prominent American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department...
, mathematician - Nick KatzNick KatzNicholas Michael Katz is an American mathematician, working in the fields of algebraic geometry, particularly on p-adic methods, monodromy and moduli problems, and number theory...
, algebraic geometry * - Martin KruskalMartin KruskalMartin David Kruskal was an American mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions in many areas of mathematics and science, ranging from plasma physics to general relativity and from nonlinear analysis to asymptotic analysis...
, mathematician * - Cornelius LanczosCornelius LanczosCornelius Lanczos Löwy Kornél was a Hungarian-Jewish mathematician and physicist, who was born on February 2, 1893, and died on June 25, 1974....
, mathematician and mathematical physicist http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Lanczos.html - Peter LaxPeter LaxPeter David Lax is a mathematician working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics. He has made important contributions to integrable systems, fluid dynamics and shock waves, solitonic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and mathematical and scientific computing, among other fields...
, mathematician, Abel PrizeAbel PrizeThe Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. The prize is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel . It has often been described as the "mathematician's Nobel prize" and is among the most prestigious...
(2005) * - Solomon LefschetzSolomon LefschetzSolomon Lefschetz was an American mathematician who did fundamental work on algebraic topology, its applications to algebraic geometry, and the theory of non-linear ordinary differential equations.-Life:...
, algebraic topology * - Emma LehmerEmma LehmerEmma Markovna Lehmer was a mathematician known for her work on reciprocity laws in algebraic number theory...
, mathematician http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/05/11_emmalehmer.shtml - Norman LevinsonNorman LevinsonNorman Levinson was an American mathematician. Some of his major contributions were in the study of Fourier transforms, complex analysis, non-linear differential equations, number theory, and signal processing. He worked closely with Norbert Wiener in his early career...
, mathematician * - George Lusztig, representation theory *
- Barry MazurBarry Mazur-Life:Born in New York City, Mazur attended the Bronx High School of Science and MIT, although he did not graduate from the latter on account of failing a then-present ROTC requirement. Regardless, he was accepted for graduate school and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1959,...
, mathematician * - Louis MordellLouis MordellLouis Joel Mordell was a British mathematician, known for pioneering research in number theory. He was born in Philadelphia, USA, in a Jewish family of Lithuanian extraction...
, number theorist * - Boris MordukhovichBoris MordukhovichBoris Mordukhovich is an American mathematician noted for his research in the areas of nonlinear analysis, optimization, and control theory. Mordukhovich is one of the founders of modern variational analysis and generalized differentiation...
, variational analysis * - John von NeumannJohn von NeumannJohn von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
, mathematician http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Von_Neumann.html - Emanuel ParzenEmanuel ParzenEmanuel Parzen is an American statistician. He has worked and published on signal detection theory and time series analysis, where he pioneered the use of kernel density estimation . Parzen is the recipient of the 1994 Samuel S...
, mathematician - George PólyaGeorge PólyaGeorge Pólya was a Hungarian mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He made fundamental contributions to combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis and probability theory...
, mathematician * - Emil Post, logician *
- Herbert RobbinsHerbert RobbinsHerbert Ellis Robbins was an American mathematician and statistician who did research in topology, measure theory, statistics, and a variety of other fields. He was the co-author, with Richard Courant, of What is Mathematics?, a popularization that is still in print. The Robbins lemma, used in...
, statistician * - Abraham RobinsonAbraham RobinsonAbraham Robinson was a mathematician who is most widely known for development of non-standard analysis, a mathematically rigorous system whereby infinitesimal and infinite numbers were incorporated into mathematics....
, nonstandard analysis * - Arthur RubinArthur RubinArthur Leonard Rubin is an American mathematician.-Biography:As an undergraduate he placed among the top five competitors in the William Lowell Putnam Competition on four occasions , a feat matched by only six other undergraduate students since the first competition in 1938...
, mathematician - Isadore SingerIsadore SingerIsadore Manuel Singer is an Institute Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
, mathematician, Abel PrizeAbel PrizeThe Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. The prize is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel . It has often been described as the "mathematician's Nobel prize" and is among the most prestigious...
(2004) * - Richard P. StanleyRichard P. StanleyRichard Peter Stanley is the Norman Levinson Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1971 under the supervision of Gian-Carlo Rota...
, mathematician * - Elias Stein, mathematician *
- Stanislaw Ulam, mathematician *
- André WeilAndré WeilAndré Weil was an influential mathematician of the 20th century, renowned for the breadth and quality of his research output, its influence on future work, and the elegance of his exposition. He is especially known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry...
, mathematician * - Norbert WienerNorbert WienerNorbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
, mathematician, Bôcher Prize, National Medal of ScienceNational Medal of ScienceThe National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
* - Edward WittenEdward WittenEdward Witten is an American theoretical physicist with a focus on mathematical physics who is currently a professor of Mathematical Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study....
, M-theory, Fields Medal (1990) * - Oscar ZariskiOscar ZariskiOscar Zariski was a Russian mathematician and one of the most influential algebraic geometers of the 20th century.-Education:...
, algebraic geometry *
External links
- Comprehensive list - from JINFO.ORG; names that can be sourced there are starred *