Horng-Tzer Yau


Horng-Tzer Yau is a Taiwanese-American mathematician who is the Merton Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University.

Early life and education

Yau was born in 1959 in Taiwan, where he began studying advanced calculus and college algebra in high school. He graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Science in 1981 and earned his Ph.D. in 1987 from Princeton University. His doctoral dissertation, "Stability of Coulomb Systems," was completed under the supervision of mathematical physicist Elliott Lieb.

Academic career

Yau joined the faculty of NYU in 1988, and became a full professor at its Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 1994. He moved to Stanford in 2003, and then to Harvard University in 2005. He was also a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1987–88, 1991–92, and 2003, and was a distinguished visiting professor in 2013–14.
According to William C. Kirby, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, "Professor Yau is a leader in the fields of mathematical physics, ... who has introduced important tools and concepts to study probability, stochastic processes, nonequilibrium statistical physics, and quantum dynamics."
Yau is a 2000 MacArthur Fellow.

Honors