Michael Thaddeus (born January 12, 1967) is an American mathematician and a professor of mathematics at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. He is best known for having been a

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

in exposing inaccurate data submitted by Columbia University to '' U.S. News & World Report'' (USNWR)'s Best Colleges Ranking to inflate the university's college ranking.

Early life and education

Thaddeus was born on January 12, 1967, in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, and grew up in

Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningsi ...

. His father, Patrick, and his mother, Janice, both held doctorates from Columbia. Thaddeus was educated at St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School before enrolling at Hunter College High School in 1980, where he graduated in 1984. Thaddeus matriculated at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where his sister was also a student, with the intent to study biology but switched to mathematics. He graduated in 1988 and was awarded a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Established in 1902, it is ...

to study at

St John's College, Oxford St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its foun ...

, where he earned his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

(DPhil). His dissertation, ''Algebraic Geometry and the Verlinde Formula'', was published in 1992 under the supervision of

Simon Donaldson Sir Simon Kirwan Donaldson (born 20 August 1957) is an English mathematician known for his work on the topology of smooth function, smooth (differentiable) four-dimensional manifolds, Donaldson–Thomas theory, and his contributions to Kähl ...

Academic career

In 1994, Thaddeus was elected a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Mittag-Leffler Institute and the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute from 1994 and 1997. In 1998, Thaddeus joined the mathematics faculty of Columbia University. He has lectured at multiple institutions including

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

Virginia Tech The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...

, and Creighton University, among others. He specializes in

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

. Thaddeus was a member of the School of Mathematics at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

in 2001. From 2017 to 2020, he was the chair of the math department at Columbia University.

Columbia rankings exposé

Thaddeus' exposé, ''An Investigation of the Facts Behind Columbia’s U.S. News Ranking'', was published in February 2022, identifying discrepancies such as shrunken class sizes and the exaggeration of faculty credentials. Due to Thaddeus' analysis, Columbia later dropped from having been ranked 2nd to being ranked 18th, sparking speculation about the integrity of college rankings.

Selected publications

References

1967 births Living people Harvard College alumni Columbia University faculty Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford {{US-mathematician-stub Alumni of St John's College, Oxford