William Thurston
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William Paul Thurston (born October 30, 1946) is an American mathematician. He was born in Washington, D.C and received his bachelors degree from New College (now New College of Florida) in 1967 followed by a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972. His PhD advisor was Morris W. Hirsch.
He is currently a professor at Cornell University. Previously he was at UC Davis, from 1996 to 2003. In the interim, he has taught both at Berkeley and Princeton. His Ph.D. students include David Gabai, Jeff Weeks, Craig Hodgson, Steven Kerckhoff, Yair Minsky, Robert Meyerhoff, Oded Schramm, William Goldman, and Richard Schwartz.
In 1982, he was awarded the Fields medal for the depth and originality of his contributions to mathematics. His fresh insights have linked many apparently disparate fields to 3-manifolds. Thurston's geometrization conjecture (and all it entails) revolutionized 3-manifold theory, reviving hyperbolic geometry. His early work was mainly in foliation theory, where he proved, amongst other things, that any n-manifold with Euler characteristic zero has a codimension one foliation.
Thurston has turned his attention in recent years to mathematical education and bringing mathematics to the general public. He has served as mathematics editor for Quantum magazine, a youth science magazine, and as head of the University of Minnesota Geometry Center. As director of Mathematical Sciences Research Institute from 1992 to 1997, he initiated a number of programs designed to increase awareness of mathematics among the public.
External links
- Thurston's page at Cornell (http://www.math.cornell.edu/People/Faculty/thurston.html)
- Biography (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Thurston.html) at the University of St Andrews