Michael Aschbacher | |
---|---|
Born |
Little Rock, Arkansas |
April 8, 1944
Residence | United States |
Nationality | American |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | California Institute of Technology |
Alma mater |
California Institute of Technology University of Wisconsin–Madison |
Doctoral advisor | Richard Hubert Bruck |
Known for | Group Theory |
Notable awards |
Cole Prize (1980) Rolf Schock Prize (2011) Leroy P. Steele Prize (2012) Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2012) |
Michael George Aschbacher (born April 8, 1944) is an American mathematician best known for his work on finite groups. He was a leading figure in the completion of the classification of finite simple groups in the 1970s and 1980s. It later turned out that the classification was incomplete, because the case of quasithin groups had not been finished. This gap was fixed by Aschbacher and Stephen D. Smith in 2004, in a pair of books comprising about 1300 pages. Aschbacher is currently the Shaler Arthur Hanisch Professor of Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology.
Aschbacher received his B.S. at the California Institute of Technology in 1966 and his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1969. He joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology in 1970 and became a full professor in 1976. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1978-79. He was awarded the Cole Prize in 1980, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1990. In 1992, Aschbacher was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the Rolf Schock Prize for Mathematics by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2011. In 2012 he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, and became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.