George Lusztig

Bio

George Lusztig is the Abdun-Nur Professor of Mathematics. He joined the MIT mathematics faculty in 1978 following a professorship appointment at the University of Warwick, 1974-77. He was appointed Norbert Wiener Professor at MIT 1999-2009.

Lusztig graduated from the University of Bucharest in 1968, and received both the M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1971 under the direction of Michael Atiyah and William Browder. Professor Lusztig works on geometric representation theory and algebraic groups. He has received numerous research distinctions, including the Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society (1977), the AMS Cole Prize in Algebra (1985), and the Brouwer Medal of the Dutch Mathematical Society (1999), and the AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2008), "for entirely reshaping representation theory, and in the process changing much of mathematics."

In 2014, Professor Lusztig received the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences, "for his fundamental contributions to algebra, algebraic geometry, and representation theory, and for weaving these subjects together to solve old problems and reveal beautiful new connections." In 2022, George Lusztig, he was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize in Mathematics "for groundbreaking contributions to representation theory and related areas."

Other distinctions include the Honorary Professor at the University of Cordoba, 1989, and the Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Paris VII, 1997. In 2003, he was awarded the Romanian National Order "Faithful Service" Grade of Commander. He was named Honorary Member of the Mathematics Institute of the Romanian Academy in 2005, and received the Diploma of Academic Merit by the Romanian Academy in 2007. He was also awarded a Simons Fellowship in Mathematics in 2014, and again in 2021.

Professor Lusztig is a Fellow of the Royal Society (1983), Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1991), and Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1992).