| Günter Matthias Ziegler | |
| Birth Date: | 19 May 1963 |
| Birth Place: | Munich, Bavaria, West Germany |
| Fields: | Mathematics |
| Workplaces: | Free University of Berlin |
| Alma Mater: | University of Munich Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Anders Björner |
| Doctoral Students: | Karim Adiprasito |
| Known For: | work on polytopes, topological combinatorics |
| Awards: | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2001) Chauvenet Prize (2006) Leroy P. Steele Prize (2018) |
Günter Matthias Ziegler (born 19 May 1963) is a German mathematician who has been serving as president of the Free University of Berlin since 2018. Ziegler is known for his research in discrete mathematics and geometry, and particularly on the combinatorics of polytopes.
Ziegler studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1981 to 1984, and went on to receive his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1987, under the supervision of Anders Björner. After postdoctoral positions at the University of Augsburg and the Mittag-Leffler Institute, he received his habilitation in 1992 from Technische Universität Berlin], which he joined as a professor in 1995. Ziegler has since joined the faculty of the Free University of Berlin.
Ziegler was awarded the one million Deutschmark by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in 1994 and the 1.5 million Deutschmark Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, Germany's highest research honor, by the DFG in 2001.[1] He was awarded the 2005 Gauss Lectureship by the German Mathematical Society. In 2006 the Mathematical Association of America awarded Ziegler and Florian Pfender its highest honor for mathematical exposition, the Chauvenet Prize, for their paper on kissing numbers.[2] [3]
In 2006 Ziegler became president of the German Mathematical Society for a two-year term.[2] In 2009, the European Research Council (ERC) awarded Ziegler one of the ERC Advanced Grants in the amount of 1.85 million Euros.[4] In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[5] In 2013 Ziegler was granted the Hector Science Award[6] and became a member of the Hector Fellow Academy.[7] Since 2016 Ziegler has been chair of the Berlin Mathematical School. In 2018 he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition (jointly with Martin Aigner) for Proofs from THE BOOK.[8]