Robert MacPherson (mathematician)

For other people named Robert Macpherson (or MacPherson), see Robert Macpherson (disambiguation).

Robert MacPherson
Robert MacPherson, 2008
Born	(1944-05-25) May 25, 1944 Lakewood, Ohio
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard University
Awards	Heinz Hopf Prize (2009)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Brown University Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	Raoul Bott
Doctoral students	Eric Babson Mark Goresky Paul Gunnells Julianna Tymoczko Kari Vilonen Zhiwei Yun

Robert Duncan MacPherson (born May 25, 1944) is an American mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University. He is best known for the invention of intersection homology with Mark Goresky, whose thesis he directed at Brown University. MacPherson previously taught at Brown University, the University of Paris, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1983 he gave a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw.

Educated at Swarthmore College and Harvard University, MacPherson received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1970. His thesis, written under the direction of Raoul Bott, was entitled Singularities of Maps and Characteristic Classes. Among his many Ph.D students are Kari Vilonen and Mark Goresky.

In 1992 MacPherson was awarded the NAS Award in Mathematics from the National Academy of Sciences. In 2002 he and Goresky were awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize by the American Mathematical Society, in 2009 he received the Heinz Hopf Prize from ETH Zurich. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Selected publications

• Goresky, Mark; MacPherson, Robert, La dualité de Poincaré pour les espaces singuliers, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Sér. A-B 284 (1977), no. 24, A1549–A1551. MR0440533
• Goresky, Mark; MacPherson, Robert, Intersection homology theory, Topology 19 (1980), no. 2, 135–162. doi:10.1016/0040-9383(80)90003-8 MR0572580
• Goresky, Mark; MacPherson, Robert, Intersection homology. II, Inventiones Mathematicae 72 (1983), no. 1, 77–129. doi:10.1007/BF01389130 MR0696691

External links

• Robert MacPherson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• IAS page, including links to publications and CV
• The work of Robert MacPherson