Charles Fefferman
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Charles Louis Fefferman (born April 18, 1949) is an American mathematician at Princeton University, where he is currently the Herbert E. Jones, Jr. '43 University Professor of Mathematics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1978 for his contributions to mathematical analysis.
Early life and education
Fefferman was born to a Jewish family,<ref>The Jewish lists: physicists and generals, actors and writers, and hundreds of other lists of accomplished Jews, Martin Harry Greenberg, (Schocken, 1979), page 110</ref><ref>American Jewish Year Book 2017: The Annual Record of the North American Jewish Communities, Arnold Dashefsky, Ira M. Sheskin, (Springer, 2018), page 796</ref> in Washington, DC. He was a child prodigy, entered the University of Maryland at age 14,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Refn and had written his first scientific paper by the age of 15.<ref name=":0" /> He graduated with degrees in math and physics at 17,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and earned his PhD in mathematics three years later from Princeton University, under Elias Stein. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Inequalities for strongly singular convolution operators".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Fefferman achieved a full professorship at the University of Chicago at the age of 22, making him the youngest full professor ever appointed in the United States.<ref name=":2" />
Career
At the age of 25, he returned to Princeton as a full professor, becoming the youngest person to be promoted to the title.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He won the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1976<ref name=":1" /> (the first person to get the award) and the Fields Medal in 1978 for his work in mathematical analysis, specifically convergence and divergence.<ref name=":0" /> He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was appointed the Herbert Jones Professor at Princeton in 1984.
In addition to the above, his honors include the Salem Prize in 1971, the Bergman Prize in 1992,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 2008,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics for 2017,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> as well as election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2021 he was awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences.<ref>BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2021</ref>
Fefferman contributed several innovations that revised the study of multidimensional complex analysis by finding fruitful generalisations of classical low-dimensional results. Fefferman's work on partial differential equations, Fourier analysis, in particular convergence, multipliers, divergence, singular integrals and Hardy spaces earned him a Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians at Helsinki in 1978.<ref>Carleson, Lennart. "The work of Charles Fefferman." Template:Webarchive Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Helsinki, 1978. vol. 1: 53–56.</ref> He was a Plenary Speaker of the ICM in 1974 in Vancouver.<ref>Fefferman, Charles. "Recent progress in classical Fourier analysis." Template:Webarchive Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vancouver, 1974. vol. 1: 95–118.</ref>
His early work included a study of the asymptotics of the Bergman kernel off the boundaries of pseudoconvex domains in <math>\mathbb C^n</math>.<ref name=TheFeff>Template:Harv</ref> He has studied mathematical physics, harmonic analysis, fluid dynamics, neural networks, geometry, mathematical finance and spectral analysis, amongst others.
Family
Charles Fefferman and his wife Julie have two daughters, Nina and Lainie. Lainie Fefferman is a composer, taught math at Saint Ann's School and holds a degree in music from Yale University as well as a Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She has an interest in Middle Eastern music.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nina Fefferman is a computational biologist residing at the University of Tennessee whose research is concerned with the application of mathematical models to complex biological systems.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Charles Fefferman's brother, Robert Fefferman, is also a mathematician and former Dean of the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago.<ref>Template:Cite web Robert Fefferman webpage at the University of Chicago Office of the President</ref>
Works
The following are among Fefferman's best-known papers:
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References
External links
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- Charles Fefferman Curriculum Vitae
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- 1949 births
- Living people
- 20th-century American mathematicians
- 21st-century American mathematicians
- Fields Medalists
- Complex analysts
- 21st-century American Jews
- American mathematical analysts
- Partial differential equation theorists
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Princeton University faculty
- Princeton University alumni
- University of Chicago faculty
- Jewish American scientists
- University of Maryland, College Park alumni
- Sloan Research Fellows
- Wolf Prize in Mathematics laureates
- Mathematicians from Washington, D.C.
- Members of the American Philosophical Society