Loïc Merel (born 13 August 1965) is a French

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. His research interests include

modular form In mathematics, a modular form is a holomorphic function on the complex upper half-plane, \mathcal, that roughly satisfies a functional equation with respect to the group action of the modular group and a growth condition. The theory of modul ...

s and

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

Career

Born in Carhaix-Plouguer,

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

, Merel became a student at the

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

. He finished his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

at Pierre and Marie Curie University under supervision of Joseph Oesterlé in 1993. His thesis on modular symbols took inspiration from the work of Yuri Manin and Barry Mazur from the 1970s. In 1996, Merel proved the torsion conjecture for elliptic curves over any number field (which was only known for number fields of degree up to 8 at the time). In recognition of his achievement, in 1998 he was an Invited Speaker of 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 IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

in Berlin.

Awards

Merel has received numerous awards, including the EMS Prize (1996), the Blumenthal Award (1997) for the advancement of research in pure mathematics, and the (1998) of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

References

External links

Website at Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu-Paris Rive Gauche
1965 births Living people École Normale Supérieure alumni People from Finistère 21st-century French mathematicians University of Paris alumni Scientists from Brittany {{france-mathematician-stub