Joel Spencer (born April 20, 1946) 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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. He is a combinatorialist who has worked on

probabilistic Probability is a branch of mathematics and statistics concerning events and numerical descriptions of how likely they are to occur. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1; the larger the probability, the more likely an e ...

methods in combinatorics and on

Ramsey theory Ramsey theory, named after the British mathematician and philosopher Frank P. Ramsey, is a branch of the mathematical field of combinatorics that focuses on the appearance of order in a substructure given a structure of a known size. Problems in R ...

. He received his doctorate from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1970, under the supervision of

Andrew Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason (19212008) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to widely varied areas of mathematics, including the solution of Hilbert's fifth problem, and was a leader in reform and innovation in teaching at ...

. He is currently () a professor at the

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU). Founded in 1935, it is named after Richard Courant, one of the founders of the Courant Institute ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. Spencer's work was heavily influenced by

Paul Erdős Paul Erdős ( ; 26March 191320September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in discrete mathematics, g ...

, with whom he coauthored many papers (giving him an

Erdős number The Erdős number () describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual ...

of 1). In 1963, while studying 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 ...

, Spencer became a

Putnam Fellow The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regar ...

. In 1984, Spencer received a

Lester R. Ford Award ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics. It was established by Benjamin Finkel in 1894 and is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America. It is an expositor ...

. He was an Erdős Lecturer at

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

in 2001. 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, meetings, ...

. He was elected as a fellow of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific soci ...

in 2017, "for contributions to discrete mathematics and theory of computing, particularly random graphs and networks, Ramsey theory, logic, and randomized algorithms". In 2021, he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition with his coauthor Noga Alon for their book ''The Probabilistic Method''.Leroy P. Steele Prize 2021
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Selected publications

* ''Probabilistic methods in combinatorics'', with

, New York: Academic Press, 1974. * ''Ramsey theory'', with Bruce L. Rothschild and Ronald L. Graham, New York: Wiley, 1980; 2nd ed., 1990. * ''Ten lectures on the probabilistic method'', Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1987; 2nd ed., 1994. * '' The strange logic of random graphs'', Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2001. * ''The probabilistic method'', with Noga Alon, New York: Wiley, 1992; 2nd ed., 2000; 3rd ed., 2008; 4th ed., 2016. * ''Deterministic random walks on regular trees'', American Mathematical Society, New York, 2008. * ''Asymptopia'', with Laura Florescu, American Mathematical Society, 2014.

References

External links

Joel Spencer's Website
1946 births 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Living people Harvard University alumni Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty Graph theorists Putnam Fellows Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics {{US-mathematician-stub

Selected publications

See also

References

External links