Charles Fefferman

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American mathematician (b. 1949)

title: "Charles Fefferman" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1949-births", "living-people", "20th-century-american-mathematicians", "21st-century-american-mathematicians", "fields-medalists", "complex-analysts", "21st-century-american-jews", "american-mathematical-analysts", "partial-differential-equation-theorists", "members-of-the-united-states-national-academy-of-sciences", "princeton-university-faculty", "princeton-university-alumni", "university-of-chicago-faculty", "jewish-american-scientists", "university-of-maryland,-college-park-alumni", "sloan-research-fellows", "wolf-prize-in-mathematics-laureates", "mathematicians-from-washington,-d.c.", "members-of-the-american-philosophical-society"] description: "American mathematician (b. 1949)" topic_path: "science/mathematics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fefferman" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American mathematician (b. 1949) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox scientist"]

FieldValue
imageCharles Fefferman.jpg
image_size150px
nameCharles Fefferman
birth_date
birth_placeWashington, D.C., U.S.
fieldMathematics
work_institutionPrinceton University,
University of Chicago
alma_materUniversity of Maryland, College Park
Princeton University
thesis_titleInequalities for Strongly Singular Convolution Operators
thesis_year1969
thesis_urlhttps://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9915995103506421
doctoral_advisorElias Stein
doctoral_studentsMatei Machedon
Luis A. Seco
prizes
::

| image = Charles Fefferman.jpg | image_size = 150px | name = Charles Fefferman | birth_date = | birth_place = Washington, D.C., U.S. | field = Mathematics | work_institution = Princeton University, University of Chicago | alma_mater = University of Maryland, College Park Princeton University | thesis_title = Inequalities for Strongly Singular Convolution Operators | thesis_year = 1969 | thesis_url = https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9915995103506421 | doctoral_advisor = Elias Stein | doctoral_students = Matei Machedon Luis A. Seco | prizes = | Erdős number = | religion = | footnotes =

Charles Louis Fefferman (born April 18, 1949) is an American mathematician at Princeton University, where he is currently the Herbert E. Jones, Jr. '43 University Professor of Mathematics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1978 for his contributions to mathematical analysis.

Early life and education

Fefferman was born to a Jewish family,The Jewish lists: physicists and generals, actors and writers, and hundreds of other lists of accomplished Jews, Martin Harry Greenberg, (Schocken, 1979), page 110 in Washington, DC. He was a child prodigy, entered the University of Maryland at age 14, and had written his first scientific paper by the age of 15. He graduated with degrees in math and physics at 17, and earned his PhD in mathematics three years later from Princeton University, under Elias Stein. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Inequalities for strongly singular convolution operators". Fefferman achieved a full professorship at the University of Chicago at the age of 22, making him the youngest full professor ever appointed in the United States.

Career

At the age of 25, he returned to Princeton as a full professor, becoming the youngest person to be promoted to the title. He won the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1976 (the first person to get the award) and the Fields Medal in 1978 for his work in mathematical analysis, specifically convergence and divergence. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979. He was appointed the Herbert Jones Professor at Princeton in 1984.

In addition to the above, his honors include the Salem Prize in 1971, the Bergman Prize in 1992, the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 2008, and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics for 2017, as well as election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. In 2021 he was awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences.

Fefferman contributed several innovations that revised the study of multidimensional complex analysis by finding fruitful generalisations of classical low-dimensional results. Fefferman's work on partial differential equations, Fourier analysis, in particular convergence, multipliers, divergence, singular integrals and Hardy spaces earned him a Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians at Helsinki in 1978. He was a Plenary Speaker of the ICM in 1974 in Vancouver.

His early work included a study of the asymptotics of the Bergman kernel off the boundaries of pseudoconvex domains in \mathbb C^n. He has studied mathematical physics, harmonic analysis, fluid dynamics, neural networks, geometry, mathematical finance and spectral analysis, amongst others.

Family

Fefferman and his wife Julie have two daughters, Nina and Lainie. Lainie Fefferman is a composer, taught math at Saint Ann's School and holds a degree in music from Yale University and a Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton. She has an interest in Middle Eastern music. Nina Fefferman is a computational biologist at the University of Tennessee who studies the application of mathematical models to biological systems.

Fefferman's brother, Robert Fefferman, is also a mathematician and former Dean of the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago. Fefferman is also the nephew of mathematician Abe Gelbart.

Works

The following are among Fefferman's best-known papers:

References

References

  1. ''American Jewish Year Book 2017: The Annual Record of the North American Jewish Communities'', Arnold Dashefsky, Ira M. Sheskin, (Springer, 2018), page 796
  2. (2014-01-07). "Interview with Charles Fefferman - OpenMind". OpenMind.
  3. Haitch, Richard. (1976-07-04). "Charlie Fefferman, Princeton mathematician, and an equation in his hand". The New York Times.
  4. "Q and A with Prof. Charles Fefferman GS '69". The Princetonian.
  5. Schumacher, Edward. (February 27, 1979). "A prodigy keeps young by just thinking". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
  6. (2016-05-24). "Hall Of Fame". University of Maryland Alumni Association.
  7. Fefferman, Charles. (1969). "Inequalities for strongly singular convolution operators".
  8. (June 8, 1998). "Two named to endowed chairs".
  9. "Charles Fefferman".
  10. "American Mathematical Society".
  11. (2008). "2008 Bôcher Prize".
  12. "Wolf Prize to be awarded to eight laureates from US, UK and Switzerland". [[The Jerusalem Post]].
  13. "Charles Louis Fefferman".
  14. "APS Member History".
  15. [https://www.frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es/noticias/the-frontiers-of-knowledge-award-goes-to-charles-fefferman-and-jean-francois-le-gall-for-their-fundamental-contributions-in-two-mathematical-fields-with-multiple-ramifications/ BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2021]
  16. [[Lennart Carleson. Carleson, Lennart]]. [http://www.mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1978.1/Main/icm1978.1.0053.0056.ocr.pdf "The work of Charles Fefferman."] {{Webarchive. link. (2017-12-07 ''Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians'', Helsinki, 1978. vol. 1: 53–56.)
  17. Fefferman, Charles. [http://www.mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1974.1/Main/icm1974.1.0095.0118.ocr.pdf "Recent progress in classical Fourier analysis."] {{Webarchive. link. (2013-12-28 ''Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians'', Vancouver, 1974. vol. 1: 95–118.)
  18. {{harv. Donnelly. Fefferman. 1983
  19. "At Hooding, advanced-degree recipients, advisers celebrate a long, successful journey".
  20. "Lainie Fefferman".
  21. "Fefferman Lab".
  22. "Deans | Office of the President | the University of Chicago".
  23. Fefferman, Charles L.. (1984-04-14). "Twentieth Century Geometry".

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