Burt Totaro | |
---|---|
![]() |
|
Born | Burt James Totaro 1967 (age 49–50) |
Institutions |
University of California, Los Angeles University of Cambridge University of Chicago |
Alma mater |
Princeton University University of California, Berkeley |
Thesis | K-Theory and Algebraic Cycles (1989) |
Doctoral advisor | Shoshichi Kobayashi |
Notable awards |
Whitehead Prize (2000) Prix Franco-Britannique (2001) |
Website |
Burt James Totaro, FRS (b. 1967), is an American mathematician at UCLA, specializing in algebraic geometry and algebraic topology.
Totaro participated in the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth while in grade school. After spending two years at Moorestown High School in New Jersey, he enrolled at Princeton University at the age of thirteen. He graduated in 1984 and went on to graduate school at Berkeley, receiving his Ph.D. in 1989.
In 2000, he was elected Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at the University of Cambridge. In the same year, he was awarded the Whitehead Prize by the London Mathematical Society. In 2009, Totaro was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Since 2009, he has been one of three managing editors of the journal Compositio Mathematica. In 2012, he became a Professor in the UCLA Department of Mathematics.
Totaro's work is influenced by the Hodge conjecture, and is based on the connections and application of topology to algebraic geometry. His work has applications in a number of diverse areas of mathematics, from representation theory to Lie theory to group cohomology.