Percy Deift Explained

Percy Alec Deift
Birth Date:	10 September 1945
Birth Place:	Durban, South Africa
Fields:	Mathematics
Workplaces:	Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU
Alma Mater:	Princeton University (Ph.D.)
Thesis Title:	Classical Scattering Theory with a Trace Condition
Thesis Year:	1977
Doctoral Advisor:	Barry Simon

Percy Alec Deift (born September 10, 1945)^[1] is a mathematician known for his work on spectral theory, integrable systems, random matrix theory and Riemann–Hilbert problems.

Life

Deift was born in Durban, South Africa, where he obtained degrees in chemical engineering, physics, and mathematics, and received a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Princeton University in 1977.^[2] He is a Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.

Honors and awards

Deift is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society (elected 2012),^[3] a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 2003),^[4] and of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (elected 2009).^{[5] [6]}

He is a co-winner of the 1998 Pólya Prize,^{[1] [7]} and was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1999.^{[1] [8]} He gave an invited address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin in 1998^{[1] [9] [10]} and plenary addresses in 2006 at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid and at the International Congress on Mathematical Physics in Rio de Janeiro.^[11] Deift gave the Gibbs Lecture at the Joint Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in 2009.^[12] Along with Michael Aizenman and Giovanni Gallavotti, he won the Henri Poincare Prize in 2018.

Selected works

• with Eugene Trubowitz: Inverse scattering on the line, Communications in pure and applied Mathematics, vol. 32, 1979, pp. 121–251
• with Fernando Lund, E. Trubowitz: Nonlinear wave equations and constrained harmonic motion. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. Feb 1980. 77. 2. 716–719. 10.1073/pnas.77.2.716 . 348351. 16592777 . Deift . P . Lund . F . Trubowitz . E. 1980PNAS...77..716D . free.
• with Richard Beals, Carlos Tomei: Direct and inverse scattering on the line, AMS, 1988^[13]
• with Luen-Chau Li, C. Tomei: Loop groups, discrete versions of some classical integrable systems, and rank 2 extensions, AMS, 1992
• with K. T-R McLaughlin: A continuum limit of the Toda lattice, AMS, 1998
• Orthogonal polynomials and random matrices: a Riemann-Hilbert approach, AMS (American Mathematical Society), 2000 (and Courant Institute, 1999)
• with Dmitri Gioev: Random matrix theory: invariant embeddings and universality, AMS, 2009^[14]
• with Jinho Baik and Toufic Suidan Book: Combinatorics and Random Matrix Theory. 2016-06-22. American Mathematical Society. 978-0-8218-4841-8.

See also

• Riemann–Hilbert problems
• random matrix theory
• integrable systems

External links

• Percy Deift personal webpage, Courant Institute, New York University
• Percy Alec Deift, Mathematics Genealogy Project

Notes and References

1. 2001 . Biographies of Candidates 2001 . . 48 . 8 .
2. https://math.nyu.edu/people/profiles/DEIFT_Percy.html Percy Deft, NYU Arts & Science
3. https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
4. Book: Alphabetical Index of Active Members . Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences . Fall 2013 . https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/alphalist.pdf.
5. http://www.nyu.edu/nyutoday/article/1804 Courant’s Percy Deift Elected to National Academy of Sciences
6. https://www.ams.org/notices/200907/rtx090700844p.pdf Mathematics People
7. https://www.ams.org/notices/199810/people.pdf SIAM Awards Pólya Prize
8. http://www.gf.org/fellows/all?index=d&page=6 Fellows list
9. http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~nsw/amsi2004/deift.html Professor Percy Deift
10. Book: Deift, P.. Kriecherbauer, T.. McLaughlin, K T.-R.. Venakides, S.. Zhou, X.. Uniform asymptotic for orthogonal polynomials. Doc. Math. (Bielefeld) Extra Vol. ICM Berlin, 1998, vol. III. 1998. 491–501. https://www.elibm.org/ft/10011605000.
11. http://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~yasuyuki/icmp2006.htm International Congress on Mathematical Physics - ICMP 2006
12. http://jointmathematicsmeetings.org/meetings/national/jmm/deift Deift to Deliver the Gibbs Lecture
13. Sachs, Robert L.. Review: Direct and inverse scattering on the line, by Richard Beals, Percy Deift, and Carlos Tomei. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 1990. 22. 2. 349–353. 10.1090/S0273-0979-1990-15908-7. free.
14. Basor. Estelle. Estelle Basor. Review: Random matrix theory: invariant embeddings and universality, by Percy Deift and Dmitri Gioev. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 2011. 48. 1. 147–152. 10.1090/s0273-0979-2010-01307-0. free.