Gunther Alberto Uhlmann Arancibia (9 February 1952,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

) is a mathematician whose research focuses on

inverse problem An inverse problem in science is the process of calculating from a set of observations the causal factors that produced them: for example, calculating an image in X-ray computed tomography, source reconstruction in acoustics, or calculating the ...

s and

imaging Imaging is the representation or reproduction of an object's form; especially a visual representation (i.e., the formation of an image). Imaging technology is the application of materials and methods to create, preserve, or duplicate images. ...

microlocal analysis In mathematical analysis, microlocal analysis comprises techniques developed from the 1950s onwards based on Fourier transforms related to the study of variable-coefficients-linear and nonlinear partial differential equations. This includes genera ...

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...

and

invisibility Invisibility is the state of an object that cannot be seen. An object in this state is said to be ''invisible'' (literally, "not visible"). The phenomenon is studied by physics and perceptual psychology. Since objects can be seen by light in ...

Education and career

Uhlmann studied mathematics as an undergraduate at the

Universidad de Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

in Santiago, gaining his

Licenciatura A licentiate (abbreviated Lic.) is an academic degree present in many countries, representing different educational levels. It may be similar to a master's degree when issued by pontifical universities and other universities in Europe, Latin Ame ...

degree in 1973. He continued his studies at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

where he received a PhD in 1976. He held postdoctoral positions at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, including a Courant Instructorship at the

Courant Institute The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

in 1977–1978. In 1980, he became Assistant Professor at MIT and then moved in 1985 to the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. He has been the Walker Family Professor at the

since 2006. During 2010-2012 he was on leave at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

, as the Excellence in Teaching Endowed Chair. Uhlmann was Finnish Distinguished Professor 2012–2017. He is currently also the Si-Yuan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is a public research university in Clear Water Bay Peninsula, New Territories, Hong Kong. Founded in 1991 by the British Hong Kong Government, it was the territory's third institution ...

since 2014.

Awards and honors

Uhlmann has received several honors for his research including a

Sloan Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

in 1984 and a

Guggenheim fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 2001. In 2001 he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...

since 2004. He was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2009 and a SIAM Fellow in 2010. He was an Invited Speaker at ICM in Berlin in 1998 and a Plenary Speaker at International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics in Zurich in 2007. He was named a Clay Senior Scholar at the

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Califo ...

(MSRI) at Berkeley in the Fall of 2010. In Fall 2010 he held the Chancellor Professorship at UC Berkeley. He was named a Highly Cited Researcher by ISI in 2004. He was awarded the

Bôcher Memorial Prize The Bôcher Memorial Prize was founded by the American Mathematical Society in 1923 in memory of Maxime Bôcher with an initial endowment of $1,450 (contributed by members of that society). It is awarded every three years (formerly every five year ...

in 2011 and the Kleinman Prize also in 2011. In Fall 2011 he was a Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, UK. Uhlmann delivered the American Mathematical Society (AMS) Einstein Lecture in 2012. He was awarded the Fondation Math'ematiques de Paris Research Chair for 2012–2013. He was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2012 and is also an AMS Fellow since 2012. He was awarded a Simons Fellowship for 2013–2014. In 2013, he was elected Foreign Member of the

Finnish Academy of Science and Letters The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (Finnish ''Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia''; Latin ''Academia Scientiarum Fennica'') is a Finnish learned society. It was founded in 1908 and is thus the second oldest academy in Finland. The oldest is the Fi ...

. He gave a Plenary Lecture at the

International Congress on Mathematical Physics The International Congress on Mathematical Physics (ICMP) is the largest research congress in mathematical physics. It is held every three years, on behalf of the International Association of Mathematical Physics (IAMP). Prizes The Henri Poin ...

in 2015 and a Plenary Lecture at the V Congreso Latinamericano de Matemáticos (CLAM) in 2016. In 2017 he was awarded the Solomon Lefschetz Medal by the Mathematical Council of the Americas. In the Fall of 2019, Uhlmann was a Clay Senior Scholar at MSRI, Berkeley. In 2021 he was awarded by AMS and SIAM the

George David Birkhoff Prize The George David Birkhoff Prize in applied mathematics is awarded – jointly by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) – in honour of George David Birkhoff (1884–1944). It is curre ...

. In 2021, he also received a Simons Fellowship. In 2022 he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Helsinki.

Research

The earlier work of Uhlmann was in microlocal analysis and propagation of singularities for equations with multiple characteristics, in particular in understanding the phenomenon of conical refraction. He and

Richard Burt Melrose Richard Burt Melrose is an Australian mathematician and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who works on geometric analysis, partial differential equations, and differential geometry. Education Melrose received in 1974 his P ...

pioneered the study of paired Lagrangian distributions. A striking application of this theory was given in the article with

Allan Greenleaf Allan may refer to: People * Allan (name), a given name and surname, including list of people and characters with this name * Allan (footballer, born 1984) (Allan Barreto da Silva), Brazilian football striker * Allan (footballer, born 1989) ( ...

on restricted

X-ray transform In mathematics, the X-ray transform (also called ray transform or John transform) is an integral transform introduced by Fritz John in 1938 that is one of the cornerstones of modern integral geometry. It is very closely related to the Radon transfo ...

. He and John Sylvester made a major breakthrough in

Calderón Calderón () is a Spanish and Sefardi occupational surname. It is derived from the Vulgar Latin "''caldaria''" ("cauldron") and refers to the occupation of tinker. Calderón, or Calderon, may refer to: * Alberto Calderón, Argentine mathematician ...

that has led to many other developments including the case of partial data. Applications of this problem include

Electrical resistivity tomography Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) or electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) is a geophysical technique for imaging sub-surface structures from electrical resistivity measurements made at the surface, or by electrodes in one or more borehole ...

in geophysics and

Electrical impedance tomography Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a noninvasive type of medical imaging in which the electrical conductivity, permittivity, and impedance of a part of the body is inferred from surface electrode measurements and used to form a tomographic ...

in medical imaging. Another major breakthrough was the solution of the boundary rigidity problem in two dimensions with Leonid Pestov. and in higher dimensions with Plamen Stefanov and András Vasy. Uhlmann has also been interested in cloaking and invisibility. Uhlmann postulates the first mathematical equations to create invisible materials.Alonso, N
Un genio invisible
Revista Qué Pasa, 21 March 2013. He and coauthors pioneered the idea of

transformation optics Transformation optics is a branch of optics which applies metamaterials to produce spatial variations, derived from coordinate transformations, which can direct chosen bandwidths of electromagnetic radiation. This can allow for the construction ...

for the case of electrostatics. Surveys of results by Uhlmann and coauthors on cloaking can be found in."Inverse problems and invisibility"
Bulletin of the AMS 46 (2009), 55–97

References

External links

*
Home page at the University of Washington

*

List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 2001 List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 2001. US and Canadian Fellows * Geneive Abdo, Independent Scholar, Washington, D. C.; Senior Research Associate, Middle East Institute, Columbia University: Faith, power, and the new Iran. * Jeremy A ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uhlmann, Gunther Living people 20th-century Chilean mathematicians 1952 births Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University of Washington faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Chilean people of Swedish descent Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty 21st-century Chilean mathematicians