Sylvain Edward Cappell (born 1946), is a Belgian 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 ...

and former student of William Browder at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, is a topologist who has spent most of his career at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private university, 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-United States Secretary of the Treasu ...

, where he is now the Silver Professor of Mathematics. He was born in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium and immigrated with his parents to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1950 and grew up largely in this city. In 1963, as a senior at the Bronx High School of Science, he won first place in the

Westinghouse Science Talent Search Westinghouse may refer to: Businesses Current companies *Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the company that manages the Westinghouse brand, with licensees: **Westinghouse Electric Company, providing nuclear power-related services **Westinghou ...

for his work on "The Theory of Semi-cyclical Groups with Special Reference to Non-Aristotelian Logic." He then graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1966, winning the

Van Amringe Mathematical Prize The Department of Mathematics at Columbia University has presented a Professor Van Amringe Mathematical Prize each year (since 1910). The prize was established in 1910 by George G. Dewitt, Class of 1867. It was named after John Howard Van Amringe, ...

. He is best known for his "codimension one splitting theorem", which is a standard tool in high-dimensional

geometric topology In mathematics, geometric topology is the study of manifolds and maps between them, particularly embeddings of one manifold into another. History Geometric topology as an area distinct from algebraic topology may be said to have originated i ...

, and a number of important results proven with his collaborator

Julius Shaneson Julius L. Shaneson (born July 24, 1944, Richmond, Virginia) is an American mathematician. He works at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was department chair from 2002 to 2006 and is currently the Class of 1939 Professor of Mathematics.

(now at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

). Their work includes many results in

knot theory In the mathematical field of topology, knot theory is the study of knot (mathematics), mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the ends are ...

(and broad generalizations of that subject) and aspects of low-dimensional topology. They gave the first nontrivial examples of topological conjugacy of linear transformations, which led to a flowering of research on the topological study of spaces with singularities. More recently, they combined their understanding of singularities, first to lattice point counting in polytopes, then to Euler-Maclaurin type summation formulae, and most recently to counting lattice points in the circle. This last problem is a classical one, initiated by Gauss, and the paper is still being vetted by experts. 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, ...

. Cappell was elected and served as a vice president of the AMS for the term of February 2010 through January 2013. In 2018 he was elected to be a member of 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 ...

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cappell, Sylvain 1946 births Living people Belgian emigrants to the United States 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Topologists Columbia College (New York) alumni Princeton University alumni Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Scientists from Brussels Sloan Research Fellows