Charles Fefferman awarded 2017 Wolf Prize in Mathematics

PHOTO BY WILLIAM CROW

Charles Fefferman, the Herbert E. Jones, Jr ’43 University Professor of Mathematics, has been selected to receive the 2017 Wolf Prize in Mathematics awarded by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. Fefferman, whose focus is on mathematical analysis, was honored for his “major contributions to several fields, including several complex variables, partial differential equations and subelliptic problems,” according to the prize citation from the Wolf Foundation.

Bestowed annually since 1978, the Wolf Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics. Fefferman, who shares the prize with Richard Schoen of Stanford University, is one of numerous Princeton faculty and alumni to receive the prize. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1969 at the age of 20 and joined Princeton’s faculty in 1973.

Fefferman’s work earned him the Fields Medal in 1978, which honors outstanding mathematicians under the age of 40. In 1976, he was the inaugural recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the nation’s highest honorary award for early-career scientists and engineers.
PHOTO BY WILLIAM CROW