Michael Artin

Bio

Professor Michael Artin received the A.B. from Princeton in 1955, and the M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1956 & 60. Oscar Zariski was his doctoral advisor. Artin continued at Harvard as Benjamin Peirce Lecturer, 1960-63. He joined the MIT mathematics faculty in 1963 (professor in 1966), and was appointed Norbert Wiener Professor from 1988-93. He served as Chair of the Pure Mathematics Committee, 1982-83, and as Chair of the Undergraduate Committee, 1994-97 & 1997-98. Outside MIT, Artin served as President of the American Mathematical Society from 1990-92.

Professor Artin is an algebraic geometer, concentrating on non-commutative algebra. He received Honorary Doctoral degrees from the University of Antwerp and University of Hamburg. From the School of Science, he was selected for the Undergraduate Teaching Prize and the Educational and Graduate Advising Award. He received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the AMS. In 2005 he was honored with the Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Centennial Medal, for being "an architect of the modern approach to algebraic geometry." Professor Artin is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences, and Honorary Member of the Moscow Mathematical Society. In 2013, Professor Artin received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, for "his fundamental contributions to algebraic geometry, both commutative and non-commutative." In 2016, he received the National Medal of Science, for his outstanding contributions to mathematics.