Peter Sarnak | |
---|---|
Born |
Johannesburg, South Africa |
18 December 1953
Nationality |
South Africa United States |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions |
Courant Institute, New York University Stanford University Princeton University Institute for Advanced Study |
Alma mater |
Stanford University University of the Witwatersrand |
Doctoral advisor | Paul Cohen |
Doctoral students |
William Duke Alex Eskin Harald Helfgott Jacob Tsimerman Jonathan Pila Kannan Soundararajan Akshay Venkatesh Jade Vinson |
Known for | Hafner–Sarnak–McCurley constant |
Influences |
Carl Ludwig Siegel Juergen Moser |
Notable awards |
George Pólya Prize (1998) Ostrowski Prize (2001) Levi L. Conant Prize (2003) Cole Prize (2005) Wolf Prize (2014) |
Peter Clive Sarnak (born 18 December 1953) is a South African-born mathematician with dual South-African and American nationalities. He has been Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University since 2002, succeeding Andrew Wiles, and is an editor of the Annals of Mathematics. He is known for his work in analytic number theory. Sarnak is also on the permanent faculty at the School of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study. He also sits on the Board of Adjudicators and the selection committee for the Mathematics award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize.
Sarnak graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand (B.Sc. 1975, B.Sc.(Hons) 1976) and Stanford University (Ph.D. 1980), under the direction of Paul Cohen. Sarnak’s highly cited work (with A. Lubotzky and R. Philips) applied deep results in number theory to Ramanujan graphs, with connections to combinatorics and computer science.
Peter Sarnak was awarded the Polya Prize of Society of Industrial & Applied Mathematics in 1998, the Ostrowski Prize in 2001, the Levi L. Conant Prize in 2003, the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Number Theory in 2005 and a Lester R. Ford Award in 2012. He is the recipient of the 2014 Wolf Prize in Mathematics. The University of the Witwatersrand conferred an honorary doctorate on Professor Peter Sarnak on the 2 July 2014 for his distinguished contribution to the field of mathematics.