Vijaya Kumar Murty (born 20 May 1956) is an

Indo-Canadian Indian Canadians are Canadians who have ancestry from India. The terms ''Indo-Canadian'' or ''East Indian'' are sometimes used to avoid confusion with the Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous Peoples of Canada. Categorically, Indian Cana ...

mathematician working primarily in

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

. He is a professor at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and is the Director of the

Fields Institute The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, commonly known simply as the Fields Institute, is an international centre for scientific research in mathematical sciences. It is an independent non-profit with strong ties to 20 Ontari ...

Early life and education

V. Kumar Murty is the brother of mathematician M. Ram Murty. Murty obtained his BSc in 1977 from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning World ...

and his PhD in mathematics in 1982 from

Harvard University 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 ...

under

John Tate John Tate may refer to: * John Tate (mathematician) (1925–2019), American mathematician * John Torrence Tate Sr. (1889–1950), American physicist * John Tate (Australian politician) (1895–1977) * John Tate (actor) (1915–1979), Australian act ...

Career

From 1982 to 1987, he held research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton,

Concordia University Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. In 1987, he was appointed as Associate Professor at the Downtown campus of the University of Toronto, and 1991 he was promoted to Full Professor. In 2001, he was deputed to the Mississauga campus to serve a two-year term as Associate Chair of Mathematics, and from 2004 to 2007 he served as the inaugural Chair of the newly-created Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the Mississauga campus. Twice he was Chair of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toronto Downtown campus (2008-2013 and 2014-2017). Murty became the director of

in 2019. Murty has served on the Canadian Mathematical Society Board of Directors and as vice president of the

Canadian Mathematical Society The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) (french: Société mathématique du Canada) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. It serves the ...

Research

Murty’s research is in areas of

analytic number theory In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837 introduction of Diric ...

, algebraic number theory, information security, and arithmetic algebraic geometry. He and his brother, M. Ram Murty, have written more than 20 joint papers. In 2020, Murty received a $666,667 grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for setting up the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Mathematical Modelling Rapid Response Task Force, a network of experts who will work to predict outbreak trajectories for the disease, measure public health interventions and provide real-time advice to policy-makers. It’s one of eight COVID-19 research projects at the University of Toronto.

Awards

Murty was elected a Fields Institute Fellow in 2003. Murty received the

Coxeter–James Prize The Coxeter-James Prize is a mathematics award given by the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) to recognize outstanding contributions to mathematics by young mathematicians in Canada. First presented in 1978, the prize is named after two renown ...

in 1991 from the

. He was elected to the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

in 1995. In 1996, he, along with his brother, M. Ram Murty, received the

Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer Prize The Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer Prize is a prize in mathematics, first awarded in 1993. It honors the memory of Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer (1912–1967), a self-taught Catalan mathematician who, despite a serious physical disability, was very active ...

for the book "Non-vanishing of L-functions and their applications." In 2018, the

listed him in their inaugural class of fellows. He was named 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, ...

, in the 2022 class of fellows, "for contributions to number theory, including the theory of L-functions associated to modular forms, and arithmetic geometry, and for service to the profession".

References

External links

Vijaya Kumar Murty: Home Page
mdash;University of Toronto, Department of Mathematics. {{DEFAULTSORT:Murty, V. Kumar 1956 births Living people Canadian mathematicians 20th-century Indian mathematicians Harvard University alumni Carleton University alumni Canadian people of Indian descent Fellows of the Canadian Mathematical Society Number theorists Fellows of the American Mathematical Society