Trevor Dion Wooley is a British mathematician, the Andris A. Zoltners Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

. His fields of interest include

analytic number theory In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837 introduction of Dir ...

Diophantine equation ''Diophantine'' means pertaining to the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus. A number of concepts bear this name: *Diophantine approximation In number theory, the study of Diophantine approximation deals with the approximation of real n ...

s and Diophantine problems,

harmonic analysis Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with investigating the connections between a function and its representation in frequency. The frequency representation is found by using the Fourier transform for functions on unbounded do ...

, the

Hardy-Littlewood circle method A twin prime is a prime number that is either 2 less or 2 more than another prime number—for example, either member of the twin prime pair or In other words, a twin prime is a prime that has a prime gap of two. Sometimes the term ''twin prime'' ...

, and the theory and applications of exponential sums. He has made significant breakthroughs on

Waring's problem In number theory, Waring's problem asks whether each natural number ''k'' has an associated positive integer ''s'' such that every natural number is the sum of at most ''s'' natural numbers raised to the power ''k''. For example, every natural num ...

, for which he was awarded the

Salem Prize The Salem Prize, in memory of Raphael Salem, is awarded each year to young researchers for outstanding contributions to the field of analysis. It is awarded by the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and was fou ...

in 1998.

Education and career

Wooley read mathematics in

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...

, receiving a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1987 with first class honours, and a master's degree in 1991. Meanwhile, he completed his PhD, supervised by

Bob Vaughan Robert Charles "Bob" Vaughan FRS (born 24 March 1945) is a British mathematician, working in the field of analytic number theory. Life Vaughan was born 24 March 1945. He read mathematics at University College London, earning a bachelor's degre ...

, in 1990 from

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 ...

. After postdoctoral research in the

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, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

, he became an assistant professor of mathematics at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

in 1991. He was promoted to associate professor in 1995, and full professor in 1998; he chaired the mathematics department from 2002 to 2005. In 2007 he returned to the UK as a professor of pure mathematics at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

, where he became head of pure mathematics from 2015 to 2016. At Bristol, his doctoral students included

Thomas Bloom Thomas F. Bloom is a mathematician, who is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. He works in arithmetic combinatorics In mathematics, arithmetic combinatorics is a field in the intersection of number theory, ...

. He took his current position as Andris A. Zoltners Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at

in 2019.

Awards and honours

Wooley was the recipient of the 1993

Berwick Prize The Berwick Prize and Senior Berwick Prize are two prizes of the London Mathematical Society awarded in alternating years in memory of William Edward Hodgson Berwick, a previous Vice-President of the LMS. Berwick left some money to be given to the ...

of the

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 ...

. He was awarded the 1998

"for his work in

additive number theory Additive number theory is the subfield of number theory concerning the study of subsets of integers and their behavior under addition. More abstractly, the field of additive number theory includes the study of abelian groups and commutative semigro ...

, in particular on problems of Waring's type". He was an invited speaker at the

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 ...

(ICM), held in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

in 2002, and after receiving the 2012 Fröhlich Prize he spoke again at the 2014 ICM in

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 ...

. He was elected as a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) in 2007, and as 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, ...

in 2012.

Selected publications

* * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wooley, Trevor Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians University of Michigan faculty Academics of the University of Bristol Purdue University faculty Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Alumni of Imperial College London