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Marker Lectures in the Mathematical Sciences Scheduled for March 23, 24, 25, 26

Gang Tian, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University and dean of the School of Mathematical Sciences and director of the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research at Peking University, will present the 2015 Russell Marker Lectures in the Mathematical Sciences on March 23, 24, 25, and 26 at Penn State University on the University Park Campus. Credit: Eugene HigginsAll Rights Reserved.

Gang Tian, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University and dean of the School of Mathematical Sciences and director of the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research at Peking University, will present the 2015 Russell Marker Lectures in the Mathematical Sciences on March 23, 24, 25, and 26 at Penn State University on the University Park Campus. The free public lectures are sponsored by the Penn State Eberly College of Science.The series includes a lecture intended for a general audience, titled "Geometric analysis and topology," which will be held at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, March 23, in 114 McAllister Building.  Tian also will give three specialized lectures in 114 McAllister Building: "Introduction to gauged Witten equation" at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 24; "Compactness theorem for gauged Witten equation" at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 25; and "Correlation of functions for gauged linear É--model" at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 26.Tian was honored with the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation in 1994 and the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry from the American Mathematical Society in 1996. He spoke at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1990 and in 2002, where he presented a plenary lecture. Tian was elected to the National Academy of Science of China in 2001 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.Tian has made fundamental contributions to geometric analysis, complex geometry, and symplectic geometry. He is particularly known for his work in differential geometry, showing that measurements known as the Kähler-Einstein metrics exist for a particular class of complex surfaces. Several fundamental mathematical theories bear his name, including the Bogomolov-Tian-Todorov theorem on the unobstructed nature of Calabi-Yau manifold deformation, the Tian-Song Minimal Model Program theory in birational geometry, and the Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture in Kähler geometry. Together with Yongbin Ruan, William Fulton Collegiate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan, he established a mathematical theory for quantum cohomology and Gromov-Witten invariants. He is also one of the pioneers in constructing virtual cycles as a tool in differential geometry. He introduced the K-stability, which has been further developed into a central topic in the theory of geometric stab! ility. Together with others including John Morgan, director of the Simons Center for Physics and Geometry at Stony Brook University, Tian helped in verifying the proof of the Poincaré conjecture given by Grigori Perelman.Tian earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Nanjing University in 1982, a master's degree in mathematics at Peking University in 1984, and a doctoral degree in mathematics at Harvard University in 1988. The Marker Lectures were established in 1984 through a gift from Russell Earl Marker, professor emeritus of chemistry at Penn State, whose pioneering synthetic methods revolutionized the steroid-hormone industry and opened the door to the current era of hormone therapies, including the birth-control pill. The Marker endowment allows the Penn State Eberly College of Science to present annual Marker Lectures in astronomy and astrophysics, the chemical sciences, evolutionary biology, genetic engineering, the mathematical sciences, and physics. For more information about the lectures or for access assistance, contact Stephanie Zerby at (814) 865-7527 or saz11@psu.edu.

Last Updated June 6, 2016