Peter Mann Winkler is a noted research mathematician, author of more than 125 research papers in mathematics and patent holder in a broad range of applications, ranging from cryptography

Cryptography

Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...

 to marine navigation

Navigation

Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...

. His research areas include discrete mathematics

Discrete mathematics

Discrete mathematics is the study of mathematical structures that are fundamentally discrete rather than continuous. In contrast to real numbers that have the property of varying "smoothly", the objects studied in discrete mathematics – such as integers, graphs, and statements in logic – do not...

, theory of computation

Theory of computation

In theoretical computer science, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with whether and how efficiently problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm...

 and probability theory

Probability theory

Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with analysis of random phenomena. The central objects of probability theory are random variables, stochastic processes, and events: mathematical abstractions of non-deterministic events or measured quantities that may either be single...

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He is currently a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

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Peter Winkler studied Mathematics at Harvard University and later received his PhD in 1975 from Yale University. He has also served as an Assistant Professor at Stanford, Full Professor and Chair at Emory and as a Mathematics Research Director at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies.

He has also published two books on mathematical puzzles: Mathematical Puzzles: A connoisseur's collection (A K Peters, 2004, ISBN 9781568812014) and Mathematical Mind-Benders (A K Peters, 2007, ISBN 9781568813363).