Gary Michael Seitz (born 1943) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, 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, ...

and a College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Mathematics at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

. He received his Ph.D. from the

in 1968, where his adviser was Charles W. Curtis. Seitz specializes in the study of algebraic and finite groups. Seitz has been active in the effort to exploit the relationship between algebraic groups and the finite groups of Lie type, in order to study the structure and representations of groups in the latter class. Such information is important in its own right, but was also critical in the classification of the finite simple groups, a major achievement of 20th century mathematics. Seitz made contributions to the classification of finite simple groups, such as those containing standard subgroups of Lie type. Following the classification, he pioneered the study of the subgroup structure of simple algebraic groups, and as an application went a long way towards solving the maximal subgroup problem for finite groups. For this work he received the Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation in 1991.

Early life

He was born in Santa Monica, California, graduated from University High School in 1961. In high school he was a bowling champion with an average of 194 and a pool shark.

Education and career

Seitz received his B.A. and Masters at

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 went on to earn his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at the

in 1968. He joined the faculty of the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

in 1968. In 1970, he moved to

as assistant professor, where he became a full professor in 1977 and a CAS Distinguished Professor in 2000. In his tenure at

he also served as the Department Head of Mathematics and Associate Dean for the sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. He served as thesis advisor fo
ten PhD students
of whom eight currently hold academic positions. He has been visiting professor at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

, California Institute of Technology, Cambridge University, Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, Imperial College, Tel Aviv University, Utrecht University, Tokyo University, among other institutions. In 2004, about a dozen mathematicians gathered for an international conference at the University of Oregon to honor his work.

Books

''The maximal subgroups of the classical algebraic groups''
AMS Memoirs, 365, (1987), 1–286.
''Maximal subgroups of exceptional algebraic groups''
AMS Memoirs, 441, (1991), 1–197. *''Finite and locally finite groups'', NATO ASI Series, (with, B. Hartley, A. Borovik, R. Bryant), Kluwer publishing company, Vol. 471, 1995.
''Reductive Subgroups of exceptional algebraic groups''
AMS Memoirs, 580, (1996), 1–111. (with

Martin Liebeck Martin Liebeck (born 23 September 1954) is a professor of Pure Mathematics at Imperial College London whose research interests include group theory and algebraic combinatorics.''Selected papers of E. B. Dynkin with commentary"
American Mathematical Society, International Press (with, Onischik,Yushkevich), 2000
''The maximal subgroups of positive dimension in exceptional algebraic groups''
AMS Memoirs, 802, (2004), 1–227. (with Martin Liebeck).
''Unipotent and Nilpotent Classes in Simple Algebraic Groups and Lie Algebras''
AMS Math. Surveys and Monographs, 180, (2012), 1–380. (with Martin Liebeck).

References

External links

Seitz's webpage at University of Oregon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seitz, Gary 1943 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Group theorists University of Oregon alumni University of Oregon faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars