Thomas Hans Willwacher (born 12 April 1983) is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

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

mathematical physicist Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the developmen ...

working as a Professor at the Institute of Mathematics,

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

Biography

Willwacher completed his PhD at

in 2009 with a thesis on "Cyclic Formality", under the supervision of Giovanni Felder, Alberto Cattaneo, and Anton Alekseev. He was later a Junior member of the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

. In July 2016 Willwacher was awarded a prize from the

European Mathematical Society The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The current ...

for "his striking and important research in a variety of mathematical fields: homotopical algebra, geometry, topology and mathematical physics, including deep results related to Kontsevich's formality theorem and the relation between Kontsevich's graph complex and the Grothendieck-Teichmüller Lie algebra". Notable results of Willwacher include the proof of

Maxim Kontsevich Maxim Lvovich Kontsevich (russian: Макси́м Льво́вич Конце́вич, ; born 25 August 1964) is a Russian and French mathematician and mathematical physicist. He is a professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques an ...

's cyclic formality conjecture and the proof that the Grothendieck–Teichmüller

Lie algebra In mathematics, a Lie algebra (pronounced ) is a vector space \mathfrak g together with an Binary operation, operation called the Lie bracket, an Alternating multilinear map, alternating bilinear map \mathfrak g \times \mathfrak g \rightarrow ...

is isomorphic to the degree zero cohomology of Kontsevich's graph complex.

References

External links

* Harvard University alumni Academic staff of ETH Zurich 21st-century German mathematicians ETH Zurich alumni 1983 births Living people Topologists Mathematical physicists {{Germany-mathematician-stub