David Eisenbud (born 8 April 1947 in

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 ...

) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

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 ...

. He is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and Director of 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); he previously served as Director of MSRI from 1997 to 2007.

Biography

Eisenbud is the son of mathematical physicist Leonard Eisenbud, who was a student and collaborator of the renowned physicist

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner ( hu, Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his con ...

. Eisenbud received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 1970 from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, where he was a student of

Saunders Mac Lane Saunders Mac Lane (4 August 1909 – 14 April 2005) was an American mathematician who co-founded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg. Early life and education Mac Lane was born in Norwich, Connecticut, near where his family lived in Taftvill ...

and, unofficially, James Christopher Robson. He then taught at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

from 1970 to 1997, during which time he had visiting positions at

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 ...

Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques The Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS; English: Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies) is a French research institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics. It is located in Bures-sur-Yvette, jus ...

(IHÉS),

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

, and

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science Basic research, also called pure research o ...

(CNRS). He joined the staff at MSRI in 1997, and took a position at Berkeley at the same time. From 2003 to 2005 Eisenbud was President 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, ...

. Eisenbud's mathematical interests include

commutative In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name o ...

and

non-commutative algebra In mathematics, a noncommutative ring is a ring whose multiplication is not commutative; that is, there exist ''a'' and ''b'' in the ring such that ''ab'' and ''ba'' are different. Equivalently, a ''noncommutative ring'' is a ring that is not ...

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical ...

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

, and computational methods in these fields. He has written over 150 papers and books with over 60 co-authors. Notable contributions include the theory of matrix factorizations for maximal Cohen–Macaulay modules over

hypersurface In geometry, a hypersurface is a generalization of the concepts of hyperplane, plane curve, and surface. A hypersurface is a manifold or an algebraic variety of dimension , which is embedded in an ambient space of dimension , generally a Euclidean ...

rings, the Eisenbud–Goto conjecture on degrees of generators of syzygy modules, and the Buchsbaum–Eisenbud criterion for exactness of a complex. He also proposed the Eisenbud–Evans conjecture, which was later settled by the

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n mathematician Neithalath Mohan Kumar. He has had 31 doctoral students, including

Craig Huneke Craig Lee Huneke (born August 27, 1951) is an American mathematician specializing in commutative algebra. He is a professor at the University of Virginia. Huneke graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's degree in 1973 and in 1978 earned ...

Mircea Mustaţă Mircea is a Romanian masculine given name, a form of the South Slavic name Mirče (Мирче) that derives from the Slavic word ''mir'', meaning 'peace'. It may refer to: People Princes of Wallachia * Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418), a ...

Irena Peeva Irena Vassileva Peeva is a professor of mathematics at Cornell University, specializing in commutative algebra. She disproved the Eisenbud–Goto regularity conjecture jointly with Jason McCullough. Education and career Peeva did her graduate ...

, and Gregory G. Smith (winner of the Aisenstadt Prize in 2007). Eisenbud's hobbies are

juggling Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object o ...

(he has written two papers on the mathematics of juggling) and music. He has appeared in

Brady Haran Brady John Haran (born 18 June 1976) is an Australian-British independent filmmaker and video journalist who produces educational videos and documentary films for his YouTube channels, the most notable being ''Periodic Videos'' and '' Numbe ...

's online video channel "

Numberphile ''Numberphile'' is an educational YouTube channel featuring videos that explore topics from a variety of fields of mathematics. In the early days of the channel, each video focused on a specific number, but the channel has since expanded its s ...

". Eisenbud was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006. He was awarded the

Leroy P. Steele Prize The Leroy P. Steele Prizes are awarded every year by the American Mathematical Society, for distinguished research work and writing in the field of mathematics. Since 1993, there has been a formal division into three categories. The prizes have b ...

in 2010. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

Selected publications

Books

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Articles

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References

External links