Tsit Yuen Lam (;Faculty Website retrieved 2014-08-13. born 6 February 1942Curriculum vitae: T. Y. Lam retrieved 2013-01-12) is a Hong Kong-American mathematician specializing in
algebra
Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic ope ...
quadratic form
In mathematics, a quadratic form is a polynomial with terms all of degree two (" form" is another name for a homogeneous polynomial). For example,
4x^2 + 2xy - 3y^2
is a quadratic form in the variables and . The coefficients usually belong t ...
s.
Academic career
Lam earned his bachelor's degree at the
University of Hong Kong
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...
in 1963 and his
Ph.D.
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 graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
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 ...
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
and since 1968 he has been at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, where he became assistant professor in 1969, associate professor in 1972, and full professor in 1976. He served as assistant department head several times. From 1995 to 1997 he was Deputy 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, Califor ...
in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
Sloan Fellow
The Sloan Fellows program is a middle and senior-career master's degree program in general management and leadership offered at MIT, Stanford University, and London Business School (LBS).
Initially supported by a grant from Alfred P. Sloan, fo ...
; in 1978–79 a
Miller
A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalents ...
Research Professor; and in 1981–82 a
Guggenheim Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...
. In 1982 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 ...
for his textbooks.
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, ...
.
Selected publications
* '' Serre’s Conjecture.'' Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Springer, 1978
* ''Serre’s Problem on Projective Modules.'' Springer 2006 2nd printing, 2010 * ''The Algebraic Theory of Quadratic Forms.'' Benjamin 1973, 1980; new version published a American Mathematical Society, 2005
* ''A First Course in Non-Commutative Rings.''
Graduate Texts in Mathematics
Graduate Texts in Mathematics (GTM) () is a series of graduate-level textbooks in mathematics published by Springer-Verlag. The books in this series, like the other Springer-Verlag mathematics series, are yellow books of a standard size (with va ...
Springer, Graduate Texts in Mathematics 1999,
* ''Sums of squares of real polynomials''. (with Man-Duen Choi & Bruce Reznick),
Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics
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, ...
58, 103–126, 1995
* ''Orderings, Valuations and Quadratic Forms.'' AMS 1983
''Exercises in Classical Ring Theory.'' Springer 1985
* ''Representations of Finite Groups: A Hundred Years.' Part IPart II Notices of the AMS 1998. (pdf files)