Haïm Brezis (1 June 1944 – 7 July 2024) was a French mathematician, who mainly worked in

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (for example, Inner product space#Definition, inner product, Norm (mathematics ...

and

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to ho ...

Biography

Born in Riom-ès-Montagnes,

Cantal Cantal (; or ) is a rural Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region of France, with its Prefectures in France, prefecture in Aurillac. Its other principal towns are Saint-Flour, Cantal, Saint-Flou ...

, France. Brezis was the son of a Romanian immigrant father, who had come to France in the 1930s, and a Jewish mother who had fled from the Netherlands. His wife, Michal Govrin, a native Israeli, works as a novelist, poet, and theater director. Brezis received his Ph.D. from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

in 1972 under the supervision of Gustave Choquet. He was a professor at the

Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

and a visiting distinguished professor at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

. He was a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

(1988) and a foreign associate of the

United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(2003). 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, ...

. He held honorary doctorates from several universities including

National Technical University of Athens The National (Metsovian) Technical University of Athens (NTUA; , ''National Metsovian Polytechnic''), sometimes known as Athens Polytechnic, a university in Athens, Greece. It is named in honor of its benefactors Nikolaos Stournaris, Eleni Tosi ...

. Brezis is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher. He also served on the Mathematical Sciences jury for the

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award granted to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards for researc ...

in 2013 and 2014. In 2024 he was awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement of the AMS. Brezis died in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

on 7 July 2024, at the age of 80.

Works

*''Opérateurs maximaux monotones et semi-groupes de contractions dans les espaces de Hilbert ''(1973) *''Analyse Fonctionnelle. Théorie et Applications ''(1983) * ''Haïm Brezis. Un mathématicien juif''. Entretien Avec Jacques Vauthier. Collection Scientifiques & Croyants. Editions Beauchesne, 1999. , * ''Functional Analysis, Sobolev Spaces and Partial Differential Equations'', Springer; 1st Edition. edition (10 November 2010), ,

References

External links

Biographical sketch (in French)
on the website of

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brezis, Haim 1944 births 2024 deaths Jewish French scientists People from Cantal 20th-century French mathematicians French mathematical analysts University of Paris alumni Academic staff of the University of Paris Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Members of Academia Europaea Members of the French Academy of Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences French people of Romanian descent 20th-century French Jews French Orthodox Jews Partial differential equation theorists Functional analysts

Biography

Works

See also

References

External links