George Lusztig

May 20, 1946, Timisoara

Mathematician. Abdun-Nur Professor of Mathematics at MIT. Norbert Wiener
Professor at MIT (1999-2009)

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George Lusztig

He was born in Timişoara, in 1946, into a Jewish family. As a high school student he participated in and won prizes at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1962 and 1963. In an interview he gratefully remembers teachers, including Maria Neumann, and college colleagues, Andrei Barsony, Vasile Brînzănescu, Gheorghe Eckstein, Otto Liess, László Zsidó. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Bucharest in 1968. As a student, he published works that attracted the attention of Michael Atiyah. In 1968 he attended a conference in Italy and from there went to England, to Warwick and Oxford, where he met Michael Atiyah who invited him to the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton). Returning to Timisoara, he applied to leave for Princeton and was refused. Instead, the request to go to Bonn for a one-week conference was approved. From Bonn, Lusztig left for Princeton (1969) and never returned to Romania.

At the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton he studied with Michael Atiyah for 2 years. He received his doctorate in 1971 under the guidance of William Browder for Novikov's Higher Signature and Families of Elliptic Operators. From 1971 he worked as a Research Fellow at Warwick University in England, and in 1974 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Warwick University (1974-1977).

Ìn 1978 a devenit profesor la facultatea de matematică de la MIT Massachussets Institute of Technology. La MIT, George Lusztig este Abdun-Nur Professor of Mathematics şi a fost numit Norbert Wiener Professor (1999-2009).

In 1978 he became a professor of mathematics at the MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, George Lusztig is Abdun-Nur Professor of Mathematics and has been appointed Norbert Wiener Professor (1999-2009).

In 1972 he married Michal-Nina Abraham; they had two daughters. He divorced in 2000 and married Gongqin Li in 2003. His daughter, Irene Lusztig, is a filmmaker who directed the documentary "Reconstruction". G. Lusztig practices yoga. George Lusztig about being Jewish: “... I'm not religious. But Judaism played an important role, both in the choice of mathematics, which seemed to me the furthest from politics, and in the fact that it was an area in which I had the greatest chance of being judged objectively. It also mattered when I left the country. The fact that I did not receive a research position in Romania was due almost one hundred percent to my Jewish origins, I was then told this, then it was confirmed. I was also told that when it was discussed whether to give me a recommendation for Princeton, it was thought that I had been invited because of Jewish connections.” Interview with Liviu Ornea, 2007.

"Lusztig's work is characterized by a high level of originality, a huge theme, a remarkable technical virtuosity and a special depth in dealing with problems. It is no exaggeration to say that George Lusztig is one of the greatest mathematicians of our time.". R.W.Carter in A Survey of the Work of George Lusztig.

Publications (selection)

  • Courses on Representations of Finite Chevalley Groups at the CBMS Regional Conference in Madison, Wisconsin in August 1974 were published by the American Mathematical Society in 1975.
  • Characters of reductive groups over a finite field, 1984, 1984
  • Introduction to quantum groups (1993) (1993)
  • Hecke algebras with unequal parameters. 2003. 2003


Awards and distinctions

  • London Mathematical Society's Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society (1977)
  • American Mathematical Society's ⦁ Cole Prize in Algebra (1985)
  • The Brouwer Medal of the Dutch Mathematical Society (1999)
  • AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2008), pentru întreaga activitate
  • ⦁ 2014 ⦁ Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences
  • ⦁ Honorary Professor at the University of Cordoba, 1989, and the Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Paris VII, 1997.
  • In 2003, he was awarded the Romanian National Order ``Faithful Service" Grade of Commander.
  • Honorary Member of the Mathematics Institute of the Romanian Academy in 2005
  • The Diploma of Academic Merit by the Romanian Academy in 2007.
  • A Simons Fellowship in Mathematics in 2014.
  • A fellow of the Royal Society (1983), a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991), and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1992).

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