Alan Stuart Edelman (born June 1963) is an American mathematician and computer scientist. He is a professor of

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) and a Principal Investigator at the

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

(CSAIL) where he leads a group in applied computing. In 2004, he founded a business called Interactive Supercomputing which was later acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. Edelman is a fellow of

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

(AMS), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM),

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

(IEEE), and

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

(ACM), for his contributions in numerical linear algebra, computational science, parallel computing, and random matrix theory. He is one of the creators of the technical programming language Julia.

Education

Edelman received B.S. and M.S. degrees in mathematics from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1984, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT in 1989 under the direction of Lloyd N. Trefethen. Following a year at

Thinking Machines Corporation Thinking Machines Corporation was a supercomputer manufacturer and artificial intelligence (AI) company, founded in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1983 by Sheryl Handler and Danny Hillis, W. Daniel "Danny" Hillis to turn Hillis's doctoral work at th ...

, and at CERFACS in France, Edelman went to U.C. Berkeley as a Morrey Assistant Professor and Levy Fellow, 1990–93. He joined the MIT faculty in applied mathematics in 1993.

Research

Edelman's research interests include high-performance computing, numerical computation, linear algebra, and random matrix theory. * In random matrix theory, Edelman is known for the Edelman distribution of the smallest singular value of random matrices (also known as Edelman's law), the invention of beta ensembles, and the introduction of the stochastic operator approach, and some of the earliest computational approaches. * In high performance computing, Edelman is known for his work on parallel computing, as the co-founder of Interactive Supercomputing, as an inventor of the Julia programming language and for his work on the Future

Fast Fourier transform A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). A Fourier transform converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in ...

. As the leader of the Julialab, he supervises work on scientific machine learning and compiler methodologies. * In numerical linear algebra, Edelman is known for eigenvalues and condition numbers of random matrices, the geometry of algorithms with orthogonality constraints, the geometry of the generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD), and applications of

Lie algebra In mathematics, a Lie algebra (pronounced ) is a vector space \mathfrak g together with an operation called the Lie bracket, an alternating bilinear map \mathfrak g \times \mathfrak g \rightarrow \mathfrak g, that satisfies the Jacobi ident ...

to matrix factorizations.

Awards

A Sloan fellow, Edelman received a

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

(NSF) Faculty Career award in 1995. He has received numerous awards, among them the Gordon Bell Prize and Householder Prize (1990), the Chauvenet Prize (1998), the Edgerly Science Partnership Award (1999), the SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra Prize (2000), and the Lester R. Ford Award, (2005, with

Gilbert Strang William Gilbert Strang (born November 27, 1934) is an American mathematician known for his contributions to Finite elements, finite element theory, the calculus of variations, wavelet analysis and linear algebra. He has made many contributions ...

). * In 2011, Edelman was selected a Fellow of SIAM, "for his contributions in bringing together mathematics and industry in the areas of numerical linear algebra, random matrix theory, and parallel computing." * In 2015, he became a Fellow of the

"for contributions to random matrix theory, numerical linear algebra, high-performance algorithms, and applications." * In 2017, he became an IEEE Fellow Class of 2018 "for contributions to the development of technical-computing languages." *In 2019, he was selected as the winner of Sidney Fernbach Award by

IEEE Computer Society IEEE Computer Society (commonly known as the Computer Society or CS) is a technical society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated to computing, namely the major areas of hardware, software, standards and people ...

"for outstanding breakthroughs in high-performance computing, linear algebra and computational science, and for contributions to the Julia programming language." * In 2021, he became an ACM Fellow of Class 2020 "for contributions to algorithms and languages for numerical and scientific computing."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edelman, Alan 1963 births Living people Academics from Brooklyn Hampshire College alumni Yale College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 2020 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellows of the IEEE Sloan Research Fellows Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Education

Research

Awards

See also

References