Christopher Derek Hacon (born 14 February 1970) is a mathematician with British, Italian and US nationalities. He is currently distinguished professor of mathematics at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

where he holds a Presidential Endowed Chair. His research interests include algebraic geometry. Hacon was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, but grew up in Italy where he studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore and received a degree in mathematics at the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

in 1992. He received his doctorate from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

in 1998, under supervision of Robert Lazarsfeld.

Awards and honors

In 2007, he was awarded a Clay Research Award for his work, joint with

James McKernan James McKernan (born 1964) is a mathematician, and a professor of mathematics at the University of California, San Diego. He was a professor at MIT from 2007 until 2013. Education McKernan was educated at the Campion School, Hornchurch, and Tr ...

, on "the birational geometry of algebraic varieties in dimension greater than three, in particular, for ninductive proof of the existence of flips." In 2009, he was awarded the Cole Prize for outstanding contribution to algebra, along with McKernan. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

, on the topic of "''Algebraic Geometry.''" In 2011, he was awarded the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize in Mathematics, Mechanics and Applications by Italy's prestigious

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rom ...

. In 2012, he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

. In 2012, he became a Simons Investigator. In 2015, he won the American Mathematical Society Moore Prize. In 2017, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, he won the 2018

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics is an annual award of the Breakthrough Prize series announced in 2013. It is funded by Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg and others. The annual award comes with a cash gift of $3 million. The Breakthrough Prize ...

(with

). In 2018, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2019, he was elected to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

References

External links

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Website of University of Utah
1970 births Living people Algebraic geometers 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians 20th-century Italian mathematicians 21st-century Italian mathematicians University of Utah faculty Clay Research Award recipients Fellows of the American Mathematical Society University of Pisa alumni Simons Investigator University of California, Los Angeles alumni Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences {{mathematician-stub