Thomas Francis Banchoff (born April 7, 1938) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

specializing in

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

. He is a professor at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, where he has taught since 1967. He is known for his research in

differential geometry Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and mult ...

in three and four dimensions, for his efforts to develop methods of

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

in the early 1990s, and most recently for his pioneering work in methods of undergraduate education utilizing online resources. Banchoff attended the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main c ...

and received his Ph.D. from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

in 1964, where he was a student of

Shiing-Shen Chern Shiing-Shen Chern (; , ; October 28, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geome ...

. Before going to Brown he taught at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

and the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

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, meeting ...

. He was a president of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

.MAA presidents: Thomas Banchoff
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Selected works

* with Stephen Lovett: Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces (2nd edition), A. K. Peters 2010 * with Terence Gaffney, Clint McCrory: Cusps of Gauss Mappings, Pitman 1982 * with John Wermer
Linear Algebra through Geometry
Springer Verlag 1983 * Beyond the third dimension: geometry, computer graphics, and higher dimensions, Scientific American Library, Freeman 1990
''Triple points and surgery of immersed surfaces.''
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 46 (1974), 407–413. (concerning the number of triple points of immersed surfaces in

R^3

.) * ''Critical points and curvature for embedded polyhedra.'' Journal of Differential Geometry 1 (1967), 245–256. (Theorem of Gauß-Bonnet for Polyhedra)

References

External links

Personal web page

1938 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Differential geometers UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni Harvard University faculty Brown University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America {{US-mathematician-stub

Selected works

Further reading

References

External links