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Percy Alec Deift (born September 10, 1945)[1] is a mathematician known for his work on spectral theory, integrable systems, random matrix theory and Riemann–Hilbert problems.

Quick Facts Born, Alma mater ...
Percy Alec Deift
Born (1945-09-10) September 10, 1945 (age 79)
Durban, South Africa
Alma materPrinceton University (Ph.D.)
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsCourant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU
Thesis Classical Scattering Theory with a Trace Condition  (1977)
Doctoral advisorBarry Simon
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Life

Deift was born in Durban, South Africa, where he obtained degrees in chemical engineering, physics, and mathematics, and received a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Princeton University in 1977.[2] He is a Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.

Honors and awards

Deift is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society (elected 2012),[3] a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 2003),[4] and of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (elected 2009).[5][6]

He is a co-winner of the 1998 Pólya Prize,[1][7] and was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1999.[1][8] He gave an invited address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin in 1998[1][9][10] and plenary addresses in 2006 at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid and at the International Congress on Mathematical Physics in Rio de Janeiro.[11] Deift gave the Gibbs Lecture at the Joint Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in 2009.[12] Along with Michael Aizenman and Giovanni Gallavotti, he won the Henri Poincare Prize in 2018.

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Selected works

  • with Eugene Trubowitz: Inverse scattering on the line, Communications in pure and applied Mathematics, vol. 32, 1979, pp. 121–251 doi:10.1002/cpa.3160320202
  • with Fernando Lund, E. Trubowitz: Deift, P; Lund, F; Trubowitz, E (February 1980). "Nonlinear wave equations and constrained harmonic motion" (PDF). Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 77 (2): 716–719. Bibcode:1980PNAS...77..716D. doi:10.1073/pnas.77.2.716. PMC 348351. PMID 16592777.
  • with Richard Beals, Carlos Tomei: Direct and inverse scattering on the line, AMS, 1988[13]
  • with Luen-Chau Li, C. Tomei: Loop groups, discrete versions of some classical integrable systems, and rank 2 extensions, AMS, 1992
  • with K. T-R McLaughlin: A continuum limit of the Toda lattice, AMS, 1998
  • Orthogonal polynomials and random matrices: a Riemann-Hilbert approach, AMS (American Mathematical Society), 2000 (and Courant Institute, 1999)
  • with Dmitri Gioev: Random matrix theory: invariant embeddings and universality, AMS, 2009[14]
  • with Jinho Baik and Toufic Suidan Combinatorics and Random Matrix Theory. American Mathematical Society. 22 June 2016. ISBN 978-0-8218-4841-8.
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See also

References

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