Dan-Virgil Voiculescu (born 14 June 1949) is a

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

professor of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He has worked in single

operator theory In mathematics, operator theory is the study of linear operators on function spaces, beginning with differential operators and integral operators. The operators may be presented abstractly by their characteristics, such as bounded linear operat ...

, operator

K-theory In mathematics, K-theory is, roughly speaking, the study of a ring generated by vector bundles over a topological space or scheme. In algebraic topology, it is a cohomology theory known as topological K-theory. In algebra and algebraic geometry, ...

and

von Neumann algebra In mathematics, a von Neumann algebra or W*-algebra is a *-algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space that is closed in the weak operator topology and contains the identity operator. It is a special type of C*-algebra. Von Neumann algeb ...

s. More recently, he developed

free probability Free probability is a mathematical theory that studies non-commutative random variables. The "freeness" or free independence property is the analogue of the classical notion of independence, and it is connected with free products. This theory was in ...

theory.

Education and career

Voiculescu studied at the

University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...

, receiving his PhD in 1977 under the direction of

Ciprian Foias Ciprian Ilie Foiaș (20 July 1933 – 22 March 2020) was a Romanian-American mathematician. He was awarded the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics in 1995, for his contributions in operator theory. Education and career Born in Reșița ...

. He was an assistant at the University of Bucharest (1972–1973), a researcher at the

Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy The "Simion Stoilow" Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy is a research institute in Bucharest, Romania. It is affiliated with the Romanian Academy, and it is named after Simion Stoilow, one of its founders. History On December 2 ...

(1973–1975), and a researcher at INCREST (1975–1986). He came to Berkeley in 1986 for the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

, and stayed on as visiting professor. Voiculescu was appointed professor at Berkeley in 1987.

Awards and honors

He received the 2004

NAS Award in Mathematics The Maryam Mirzakhani Prize in Mathematics (ex-NAS Award in Mathematics until 2012) is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for excellence of research in the mathematical sciences published within the past ten years." Named after the ...

from the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(NAS) for “the theory of free probability, in particular, using

random matrices In probability theory and mathematical physics, a random matrix is a matrix-valued random variable—that is, a matrix in which some or all elements are random variables. Many important properties of physical systems can be represented mathemat ...

and a new concept of

entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...

to solve several hitherto intractable problems in von Neumann algebras.” Voiculescu was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. 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, ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2013-08-29.

References

External links

Berkeley page
*Notes o
Dan-Virgil Voiculescu: visionary operator algebraist and creator of free probability theory
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voiculescu, Dan Romanian emigrants to the United States Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century Romanian mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Mathematical analysts Probability theorists University of California, Berkeley faculty Romanian academics University of Bucharest alumni Scientists from Bucharest Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Living people 1949 births 21st-century Romanian mathematicians