Sir Martin Hairer (born 14 November 1975) is an Austrian-British mathematician working in the field of

stochastic analysis Stochastic calculus is a branch of mathematics that operates on stochastic processes. It allows a consistent theory of integration to be defined for integrals of stochastic processes with respect to stochastic processes. This field was created an ...

, in particular

stochastic partial differential equation Stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) generalize partial differential equations via random force terms and coefficients, in the same way ordinary stochastic differential equations generalize ordinary differential equations. They hav ...

s. He is Professor of Mathematics at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

. He previously held appointments at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

and the Courant Institute of

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 ...

. In 2014 he was awarded the

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of Mathematicians, International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place e ...

, one of the highest honours a mathematician can achieve. In 2020 he won the 2021

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics is an annual award of the Breakthrough Prize series announced in 2013. It is funded by Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg and others. The annual award comes with a cash gift of $3 million. The Breakthrough Prize ...

Early life and education

Hairer was born in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, Switzerland. He attended the Collège Claparède

where he received his high school diploma in 1994. He entered a school science competition with sound editing software that was developed into Amadeus, and later continued to maintain the software in addition to his academic work; it continued to be widely used . He then attended the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public university, public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by French theologian John Calvin as a Theology, theological seminary. It rema ...

, where he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics in July 1998, Master of Science in Physics in October 1998 and PhD in Physics under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Eckmann in November 2001.

Research and career

Hairer is active in the field of

s in particular, and in stochastic analysis and stochastic dynamics in general. He has worked on variants of Hörmander's theorem, systematisation of the construction of Lyapunov functions for stochastic systems, development of a general theory of

ergodicity In mathematics, ergodicity expresses the idea that a point of a moving system, either a dynamical system or a stochastic process, will eventually visit all parts of the space that the system moves in, in a uniform and random sense. This implies th ...

for non- Markovian systems, multiscale analysis techniques, theory of homogenisation, theory of path sampling and theory of

rough path In stochastic analysis, a rough path is a generalization of the classical notion of a smooth path. It extends calculus and differential equation theory to handle irregular signals—paths that are too rough for traditional analysis, such as a Wi ...

s and, in 2014, on his theory of regularity structures. Under the name HairerSoft, he develops

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

software.

Affiliations

* Regius Professor of Mathematics,

(2014–2017) *Member of the scientific steering committee of ETHZ-ITS (2013–2019) *

Institut Henri Poincaré The Henri Poincaré Institute (or IHP for ''Institut Henri Poincaré'') is a mathematics research institute part of Sorbonne University, in association with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). It is located in the 5th arrondi ...

, member of scientific steering committee (2012–2020) *

Mathematical Research Institute of Oberwolfach The Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics () is a center for mathematical research in Oberwolfach, Germany. It was founded by mathematician Wilhelm Süss in 1944. It organizes weekly workshops on diverse topics where mathematicians and ...

, member of steering committee (2013–2021) *Editor, '' Probability Theory and Related Fields'' *Editor, ''Nonlinear Differential Equations and Applications'' *Editor, '' Annales Henri Poincaré'' Ser. B *Editor, ''Electronic Journal of Probability'' *Editor, ''Stochastic Partial Differential Equations: Analysis and Computations'' *Visiting Professor, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse (December 2006 and February 2014) *Visiting Professor,

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

(July 2009) *Visiting Professor,

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

, Paris (April 2013) *Member,

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

, Princeton (March – April 2014) *Lipschitz Lectures, Hausdorff Center for Mathematics,

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

(July 2013) *Minerva Lectures,

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

(February 2014) *

Euler Lecture The Euler Lecture (''Euler-Vorlesung in Sanssouci'') is a mathematics lecture given at an annual event at the University of Potsdam (''Universität Potsdam''). The event, initiated in 1993, is organized by the ''Universität Potsdam, Institut for Ma ...

, Zuse Institute Berlin (May 2014) *Medallion Lecture, Institute of Mathematical Statistics (July 2014) *Lévy Lecture, Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications (July 2014) *Fields Medal lecture,

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

(August 2014) *Collingwood Lecture,

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

(February 2015) *Bernoulli Lecture,

École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (, EPFL) is a public university, public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 1969 with the mission to "train talented engineers in Switzerland". Like its sister institution E ...

(May 2015) *Leonardo da Vinci Lecture,

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

(October 2015) *Kai-Lai Chung Lecture,

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

(November 2015) *Michalik Lecture,

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

(December 2015)

Awards and honours

* 2006–2011 Advanced

Research Fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a p ...

ship,

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British UK Research Councils, Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical scienc ...

(EPSRC) * 2007 – Editors' Choice Award,

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a digital magazine and website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG. History ''Macworld'' was founded by David Bunnell and Cheryl Woodard (publishers) and Andrew Fl ...

* 2008 – Whitehead Prize,

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's Learned society, learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh ...

* 2008 –

Philip Leverhulme Prize The Philip Leverhulme Prize is awarded by the Leverhulme Trust to recognise the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising. The prize sche ...

Leverhulme Trust The Leverhulme Trust () is a large national grant-making organisation in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1925 under the will of the 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), with the instruction that its resources should be used to cover ...

* 2009 – Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award * 2012 – Leverhulme Research Leadership Award, Leverhulme Trust * 2013 –

Fermat Prize The Fermat prize of mathematics, mathematical research biennially rewards research works in fields where the contributions of Pierre de Fermat have been decisive: * Statements of variational principles * Foundations of probability and analytic geo ...

, Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse * 2014 – Consolidator grant,

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

* 2014 – Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014 * 2014 – Fröhlich Prize, London Mathematical Society * 2014 –

* 2015 – 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, ...

* 2015 – Member 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 ...

* 2015 – Member of the

Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (), in short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on 1 January 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the ''Academi ...

* 2015 – Member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

* 2016 – Honorary

Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

* 2017 – Foreign member of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

* 2019 – Substantive Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire * 2021 –

* 2022 –

King Faisal Prize The King Faisal Prize (, formerly King Faisal International Prize), is an annual award sponsored by King Faisal Foundation presented to "dedicated men and women whose contributions make a positive difference". The foundation awards prizes in fiv ...

* 2022 – Medal of the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematics and Physics

Personal life

Hairer holds Austrian and British nationality, and speaks French, German and English; he married fellow mathematician Li Xue-Mei in 2003. His father is Ernst Hairer, a mathematician at the University of Geneva.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hairer, Martin 1975 births Living people 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Academics of the University of Warwick Austrian emigrants to England Austrian expatriates in Switzerland Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Royal Society Fields Medalists Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Probability theorists Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders University of Geneva alumni Whitehead Prize winners Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Philip Leverhulme Prize winners