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Andrei Vladlenovich Zelevinsky (; 30 January 1953 – 10 April 2013) was a Russian-American mathematician who made important contributions to
algebra Algebra () is one of the areas of mathematics, broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathem ...
,
combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many a ...
, and
representation theory Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by ''representing'' their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essen ...
, among other areas.


Biography

Zelevinsky graduated in 1969 from the
Moscow Mathematical School No. 2 Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
. After winning a silver medal as a member of the USSR team at the
International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except ...
he was admitted without examination to the mathematics department of
Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
where he obtained his PhD in 1978 under the mentorship of
Joseph Bernstein Joseph Bernstein (sometimes spelled I. N. Bernshtein; he, יוס(י)ף נאומוביץ ברנשטיין; russian: Иосиф Наумович Бернштейн; born 18 April 1945) is a Soviet-born Israeli mathematician working at Tel Aviv Un ...
,
Alexandre Kirillov Alexandre Aleksandrovich Kirillov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Кири́ллов, born 1936) is a Soviet and Russian mathematician, known for his works in the fields of representation theory, topological groups a ...
and
Israel Gelfand Israel Moiseevich Gelfand, also written Israïl Moyseyovich Gel'fand, or Izrail M. Gelfand ( yi, ישראל געלפֿאַנד, russian: Изра́иль Моисе́евич Гельфа́нд, uk, Ізраїль Мойсейович Гел� ...
. He worked in the mathematical laboratory of Vladimir Keilis-Borok at the Institute of Earth Science (1977–85), and at the Council for Cybernetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1985–90). In the early 1980s, at a great personal risk, he taught at the
Jewish People's University Jewish People's University – unofficial semi-underground mathematical courses in Moscow in 1978–1982. History of creation The idea of creating a People's University came about by interviewing applicants MSU Faculty of Mechanics and Mathema ...
, an unofficial organization offering first-class mathematics education to talented students denied admission to Moscow State University's math department. In 1990–91, Zelevinsky was a visiting professor at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...
, and from 1991 until his death was on faculty at
Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in Charlotte, North C ...
, Boston. With his wife, Galina, he had a son and a daughter; he also had several grandchildren. Zelevinsky is a relative of the physicists Vladimir Zelevinsky and Tanya Zelevinsky.


Research

Zelevinsky's most notable achievement is the discovery (with Sergey Fomin) of
cluster algebra Cluster algebras are a class of commutative rings introduced by . A cluster algebra of rank ''n'' is an integral domain ''A'', together with some subsets of size ''n'' called clusters whose union generates the algebra ''A'' and which satisfy vario ...
s. His other contributions include: *
Bernstein–Zelevinsky classification In mathematics, the Bernstein–Zelevinsky classification, introduced by and , classifies the irreducible complex smooth representations of a general linear group over a local field in terms of cuspidal representation In number theory, cuspidal r ...
of representations of ''p''-adic groups; * introduction (jointly with
Israel Gelfand Israel Moiseevich Gelfand, also written Israïl Moyseyovich Gel'fand, or Izrail M. Gelfand ( yi, ישראל געלפֿאַנד, russian: Изра́иль Моисе́евич Гельфа́нд, uk, Ізраїль Мойсейович Гел� ...
and Mikhail Kapranov) of A-systems of hypergeometric equations (also known as GKZ-systems) and development of the theory of hyperdeterminants; * generalization of the Littlewood–Richardson rule and Robinson–Schensted correspondence using the combinatorics of "pictures"; * work (jointly with Arkady Berenstein and Sergey Fomin) on
total positivity In mathematics, a totally positive matrix is a square matrix in which all the minors are positive: that is, the determinant of every square submatrix is a positive number. A totally positive matrix has all entries positive, so it is also a posit ...
; * work (with Sergey Fomin) on the Laurent phenomenon, including its applications to Somos sequences.


Awards and recognition

* Invited lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians (Berlin, 1998) * Humboldt Research Award (2004) * Fellow (2012) of the American Mathematical Society * University Distinguished Professorship (2013) at Northeastern UniversityNortheastern University, Math. Dep page
/ref>--> * Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research (2018)2018 Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research in Discrete Mathematics/Logic to Sergey Fomin and Andrei Zelevinsky
/ref>


References


External links



(includin


Publications of Andrei Zelevinsky (in Russian)Research Focus: Andrei Zelevinsky's Cluster AlgebrasLive journal run by Andrei Zelevinsky from 2007 to 2013
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zelevinsky, Andrei 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Russian mathematicians Northeastern University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 1953 births 2013 deaths International Mathematical Olympiad participants Soviet mathematicians Combinatorialists