David Epstein (mathematician)

David Epstein
David Epstein at the Warwick Mathematics Institute in December 2009
Born	David Bernard Alper Epstein 1937 (age 79–80)
Alma mater	University of Cambridge (PhD)
Spouse(s)	Rona
Awards	FRS (2004)
Website	homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~masbab
Scientific career
Institutions	University of Warwick
Thesis	Three Dimensional Manifolds (1960)
Doctoral advisor	Christopher Zeeman
Doctoral students	Elmer Rees

David Bernard Alper Epstein FRS (b. 1937) is a mathematician known for his work in hyperbolic geometry, 3-manifolds, and group theory, amongst other fields. He co-founded the University of Warwick mathematics department with Christopher Zeeman and is founding editor of the journal Experimental Mathematics.

In 1954, David came to the UK after completing his bachelors in Mathematics in South Africa. Having received the exemption for Mathematical Tripos part I at Cambridge, he completed Mathematical Tripos part II in 1955 and Mathematical Tripos part III in 1957. He completed his PhD on the topic of three-dimensional manifolds under the supervision of Christopher Zeeman in 1960. He then travelled to the Princeton university, where he spent one year attending the lectures of Norman Steenrod on the theory of Cohomology Operations, making notes and revisions to them, later published as a book by the Princeton press in 1962. In 1961, he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton. He returned to the UK in 1962 to become a Research Fellow of the newly founded Churchill College, Cambridge. In 1964, David moved to the Mathematics Institute of the University of Warwick to take up a Readership position there. He was the first academic at the University of Warwick to move into local accommodation, though many Professors were appointed before him.

Epstein was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize by the London Mathematical Society in 1988. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.