Christoph Koutschan is a German mathematician and computer scientist. He is currently with the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics (RICAM) of the

Austrian Academy of Sciences The Austrian Academy of Sciences (; ÖAW) is a legal entity under the special protection of the Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every fi ...

Education

Christoph Koutschan (born 12 December 1978 in

Dillingen an der Donau Dillingen an der Donau (; officially Dillingen a.d.Donau; ) is a Town#Germany, town in Swabia (Bavaria), Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative center of the district of Dillingen (district), Dillingen. Besides the town of Dillingen ...

, Germany) is a German mathematician and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

. He studied computer science at the

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

in Germany from 1999 to 2005 and then moved to the

Research Institute for Symbolic Computation The Research Institute for Symbolic Computation (RISC Linz) is a research institute in the area of symbolic computation, including automated theorem proving and computer algebra. It is located in Schloß Hagenberg in Hagenberg near Linz in Austria. ...

(RISC) in Linz, Austria, where he completed his PhD in

symbolic computation In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating mathematical expressions ...

in 2009 under the supervision of Peter Paule.

Career

Koutschan is working on

computer algebra In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating expression (mathematics), ...

, particularly on

holonomic function In mathematics, and more specifically in analysis, a holonomic function is a smooth function of several variables that is a solution of a system of linear homogeneous differential equations with polynomial coefficients and satisfies a suitable d ...

s, with applications to

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

special functions Special functions are particular mathematical functions that have more or less established names and notations due to their importance in mathematical analysis, functional analysis, geometry, physics, or other applications. The term is defined by ...

knot theory In topology, knot theory is the study of knot (mathematics), mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the ends are joined so it cannot be und ...

, and physics. Together with

Doron Zeilberger Doron Zeilberger (; born 2 July 1950) is an Israeli-American mathematician, known for his work in combinatorics. Education and career He received his doctorate from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1976, under the direction of Harry Dym, w ...

and

Manuel Kauers Manuel Kauers (born 20 February 1979 in Lahnstein, West Germany) is a German mathematician and computer scientist. He is working on computer algebra and its applications to discrete mathematics. He is currently professor for algebra at Johann ...

, Koutschan proved two famous open conjectures in

using large scale computer algebra calculations. Both proofs appeared in the

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scie ...

. The first concerned a conjecture formulated by Ira Gessel on the number of certain lattice walks restricted to the quarter plane. The second conjecture proven by Koutschan, Kauers, and Zeilberger was the so-called q-TSPP conjecture, a product formula for the orbit generating function of totally symmetric plane partitions, which was formulated by George Andrews and David Robbins in the early 1980s. He is currently with the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics (RICAM) of the

Awards

In 2016, with

and

he received the

David P. Robbins Prize The David P. Robbins Prize for papers reporting novel research in algebra, combinatorics, or discrete mathematics is awarded both by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). The AMS award recog ...

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, meetings, ...

Personal life

Koutschan is married and has two children.

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Koutschan, Christoph 1978 births Living people 20th-century German mathematicians 21st-century German mathematicians German expatriates in Austria German computer scientists