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Robert Bryant (mathematician)

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Robert Bryant
Bryant at Oberwolfach in 2012
Born
Robert Leamon Bryant

(1953-08-30) August 30, 1953 (age 70)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materNorth Carolina State University at Raleigh
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsDuke University
University of California at Berkeley
Rice University
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
Thesis Some Aspects of the Local and Global Theory of Pfaffian Systems  (1979)
Doctoral advisorRobert Brown Gardner
Websitefds.duke.edu/db/aas/math/bryant
Robert Bryant, working with R. Kusner, found this parameterization of Boy's surface which minimizes the Willmore energy

Robert Leamon Bryant (born August 30, 1953) is an American mathematician and Phillip Griffiths Professor of Mathematics at Duke University.[1] He specializes in differential geometry. He served as the director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) from 2007 to 2013.[2] He is known for his work in exterior differential systems, special holonomy, and Finsler geometry. Bryant surfaces, surfaces of unit constant mean curvature in hyperbolic space, are named after him.[3] The Bryant soliton is also named after him.[1]

In 2013 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[4] He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. On February 1, 2015, he began his two-year term as president of the American Mathematical Society.[5][6]

Selected publications

  • editor with David Bao, S. S. Chern, Zhongmin Shen: A sampler of Riemann-Finsler Geometry, Cambridge University Press 2004
  • with Robert Brown Gardner, S. S. Chern, H. L. Goldschmidt, Phillip Griffiths: Exterior Differential Systems, MSRI Publ. 18, Springer Verlag 1991
  • with Phillip Griffiths, Dan Grossmann: Exterior Differential Systems and Euler-Lagrange Partial Differential Equations, Chicago Lectures in Mathematics, University of Chicago Press 2003[7]
  • editor with Victor Guillemin, Sigurdur Helgason, R. O. Wells: Integral Geometry, Contemporary Mathematics 63, AMS 1987
  • Metrics with exceptional holonomy, Annals of Mathematics, vol. 126, 1987, pp. 525–567
  • An introduction to Lie groups and symplectic geometry, in Geometry and quantum field theory, IAS/Park City Math. Series 1, American Mathematical Society 1995, pp. 5–181
  • with Lucas Hsu, Phillip Griffiths: Hyperbolic exterior differential systems and their conservation laws, Parts 1,2, Selecta Mathematica, 1, 1995, 21-112, 265-323
  • with Griffiths: Characteristic Cohomology of Differential Systems, Parts 1,2, Journal of the AMS, vol. 8, 1995, pp. 507–596, Duke Math. J., vol. 78, 1995, pp. 531–676
  • with Hsu, Griffiths: Toward a Geometry of Differential Equations, in: Geometry, Topology & Physics, Conf. Proc. Lecture Notes Geom. Topology, VI, International Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995, pp. 1–76

Bryant and David Morrison are the editors of vol. 4 of the Selected Works of Phillip Griffiths.

References

  1. ^ a b http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/math/faculty/bryant
  2. ^ "Biography: Robert Bryant". MSRI. 2008.
  3. ^ Rosenberg, Harold (2002), "Bryant surfaces", The global theory of minimal surfaces in flat spaces (Martina Franca, 1999), Lecture Notes in Math., vol. 1775, Berlin: Springer, pp. 67–111, doi:10.1007/978-3-540-45609-4_3, MR 1901614.
  4. ^ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2012-11-10.
  5. ^ "Bryant Begins Term as AMS President". American Mathematical Society, Homepage. February 3, 2015.
  6. ^ Robert L. Bryant, AMS Presidents: A Timeline
  7. ^ Olver, Peter J. (2005). "Review: Exterior differential systems and Euler-Lagrange partial differential equations, by R. L. Bryant, P. A Griffiths, and D. A. Grossman" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 42 (3): 407–412. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-05-01062-1.