Federico Rodríguez Hertz (born December 14, 1973) is an Argentine mathematician working in the United States. He is the Anatole Katok Chair professor of mathematics at

Penn State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

. Rodriguez Hertz studies

dynamical system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a Function (mathematics), function describes the time dependence of a Point (geometry), point in an ambient space, such as in a parametric curve. Examples include the mathematical models ...

s and

ergodic theory Ergodic theory is a branch of mathematics that studies statistical properties of deterministic dynamical systems; it is the study of ergodicity. In this context, "statistical properties" refers to properties which are expressed through the behav ...

, which can be used to described chaos's behaviors over the large time scale and also has many applications in

statistical mechanics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. Sometimes called statistical physics or statistical thermodynamics, its applicati ...

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 ...

, and

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

Early life and education

He is the son of Mariana Frugoni and Adolfo Rodriguez Hertz. He has four siblings, including Jana, a mathematician, teacher and researcher. Rodriguez Hertz studied at the

Universidad Nacional de Rosario The National University of Rosario (, UNR) is a research public university located in the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. Overview Rosario National University (UNR) was created in 1968 by Law 17.987. Its foundational struct ...

in Argentina as an undergraduate student. He moved to Montevideo, Uruguay in 1995, and, unable to continue studies there, he moved in 1996 to Rio de Janeiro where he studied at the graduate school at

IMPA is a high-fantasy video game series created by Japanese game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It is primarily developed and published by Nintendo, although some portable installments have been outsourced to Capcom, Vanpool and ...

and earned a doctoral degree at the IMPA in Brazil in 2001 (with a thesis on "Stable Ergodicity of Toral Automorphisms" under

Jacob Palis Jacob Palis Jr. (15 March 1940 – 7 May 2025) was a Brazilian mathematician and professor. Palis's research interests were mainly dynamical systems and differential equations. Some themes are global stability and hyperbolicity, bifurcations, ...

). His doctoral thesis was published in the Annals of Mathematics and made a breakthrough in this field. After he received his Ph.D., he moved back to Uruguay, where worked at the National University until moving to

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with ca ...

Work and research

Rodriguez Hertz has published research papers in journals including ''

Annals of Mathematics The ''Annals of Mathematics'' is a mathematical journal published every two months by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. History The journal was established as ''The Analyst'' in 1874 and with Joel E. Hendricks as t ...

'', ''

Acta Mathematica ''Acta Mathematica'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal covering research in all fields of mathematics. According to Cédric Villani, this journal is "considered by many to be the most prestigious of all mathematical research journ ...

'', ''

Journal of the American Mathematical Society The ''Journal of the American Mathematical Society'' (''JAMS''), is a quarterly peer-reviewed mathematical journal published by the American Mathematical Society. It was established in January 1988. Abstracting and indexing This journal is abs ...

'', ''

Inventiones Mathematicae ''Inventiones Mathematicae'' is a mathematical journal published monthly by Springer Science+Business Media. It was established in 1966 and is regarded as one of the most prestigious mathematics journals in the world. The current (2023) managing ...

'', '' Contemporary Mathematics'', and '' Journal of Modern Dynamics''. The first important contribution of Federico Rodriguez Hertz is his thesis dealing with stable ergodicity, which established the tools for proving stable ergodicity of non accessible systems. Then jointly with Jana Rodriguez Hertz, Ali Tahzibi and Raul Ures, Federico Rodriguez Hertz has proved a series of deep results about the geometry of Hopf brushes. It has been commented that his work "allows one to bring to the spotlight new powerful tools of rigidity theory, in particular topological and geometric methods". Later, Rodriguez Hertz has researched rigidity theory, which describes the flexibility and motion of sets of rigid bodies. His work in nonuniform-measure rigidity has advanced ergodic theory. A recent work of Aaron Brown and Federico Rodriguez Hertz provides a significant generalization of nonuniform-measure rigidity theory. Another very important work of Rodriguez Hertz is on global rigidity of Anosov actions, joint with Zhiren Wang and joint with Aaron Brown and Zhiren Wang, which has been seen as "the crowning achievements in the work on global rigidity of Anosov actions on tori and nilmanifolds". Federico Rodriguez Hertz is an editor of the '' Journal of Modern Dynamics''. He has served as a referee for many distinguished peer-reviewed journals, including

and ''

'', and as an evaluator for the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cientifico y Tecnologico, a research foundation promoting science and technology in Chile. He has given invited talks in conferences, workshops and at academic institutions in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, China, Chile, Poland, Mexico, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal and India.

Teaching

Rodriguez Hertz was a professor of mathematics in the engineering school at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay since 2002. He joined

Eberly College of Science The Eberly College of Science is the science college of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1859 by Jacob S. Whitman, professor of natural science. The College offers baccalaureate, master's, and do ...

Department of Mathematics in 2011 as a professor, and holds the Anatole Katok professorship since 2019.

Honors and recognition

In 2005, Rodriguez Hertz received Premio Roberto Caldeyro Barcia Award from Uruguay's Basic Science Development Program. In 2009, he received an award from the Mathematical Union for Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2010 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010 in Hyderabad, India. In 2015 he received the Brin Prize in Dynamical Systems. In 2017, Rodriguez Hertz has been selected to receive the Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Physical Sciences. This award was established in 1980 to "recognize scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez Hertz, Federico 1973 births Living people Argentine mathematicians National University of Rosario alumni Pennsylvania State University faculty