Wei Zhang (; born 1981) is a Chinese mathematician specializing in

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

. He is currently a Professor of Mathematics 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 ...

Education

Zhang grew up in

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

province and attended

Chengdu No.7 High School Sichuan Chengdu No.7 High School (), with another name as Chengdu High School (), is a public high school in Wuhou, Chengdu, Wuhou, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. Established in 1905, the school was formerly known as Chengdu County Middle School before ...

. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics from

Peking University Peking University (PKU) is a Public university, public Types of universities and colleges in China#By designated academic emphasis, university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of the Peop ...

in 2004 and his Ph.D. from

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 ...

in 2009 under the supervision of Shou-Wu Zhang.

Career

Zhang was a postdoctoral researcher and Benjamin Peirce Fellow at

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 ...

from 2009 to 2011. He was a member of the mathematics faculty at Columbia University from 2011 to 2017, initially as an assistant professor before becoming a full professor in 2015. He has been a full professor at the

since 2017.

Work

His collaborations with Zhiwei Yun, Xinyi Yuan and Xinwen Zhu have received attention in publications such as

Quanta Magazine ''Quanta Magazine'' is an editorially independent online publication of the Simons Foundation covering developments in physics, mathematics, biology and computer science. History ''Quanta Magazine'' was initially launched as ''Simons Science ...

and

Business Insider ''Business Insider'' (stylized in all caps: BUSINESS INSIDER; known from 2021 to 2023 as INSIDER) is a New York City–based multinational financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Inside ...

."Math Quartet Joins Forces on Unified Theory"
''

''. Retrieved on 4 December 2016. In particular, his work with Zhiwei Yun on the

Taylor expansion In mathematics, the Taylor series or Taylor expansion of a function is an infinite sum of terms that are expressed in terms of the function's derivatives at a single point. For most common functions, the function and the sum of its Taylor ser ...

of L-functions is "already being hailed as one of the most exciting breakthroughs in an important area of number theory in the last 30 years." Zhang has also made substantial contributions to the global

Gan–Gross–Prasad conjecture In mathematics, the Gan–Gross–Prasad conjecture is a restriction problem in the representation theory of real or Lie groups posed by Gan Wee Teck, Benedict Gross, and Dipendra Prasad. The problem originated from a conjecture of Gross a ...

Awards

He was a recipient of the

SASTRA Ramanujan Prize The SASTRA Ramanujan Prize is an annual prize awarded to outstanding contributions in mathematics. It was incorporated and is awarded by the Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology & Research Academy (SASTRA) in Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu. The awa ...

in 2010, for "far-reaching contributions by himself and in collaboration with others to a broad range of areas in mathematics, including

automorphic form In harmonic analysis and number theory, an automorphic form is a well-behaved function from a topological group ''G'' to the complex numbers (or complex vector space) which is invariant under the action of a discrete subgroup \Gamma \subset G o ...

L-function In mathematics, an ''L''-function is a meromorphic function on the complex plane, associated to one out of several categories of mathematical objects. An ''L''-series is a Dirichlet series, usually convergent on a half-plane, that may gi ...

s, trace formulas,

representation theory Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebra, abstract algebraic structures by ''representing'' their element (set theory), elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies Module (mathematics), ...

, and

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

.” In 2013, Zhang received a

Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

; in 2016 Zhang was awarded the Morningside Gold Medal of Mathematics. In December 2017 he was awarded 2018 New Horizons In Mathematics Prize together with Zhiwei Yun, Aaron Naber and

Maryna Viazovska Maryna Sergiivna Viazovska (, ; born 2 December 1984) is a Ukrainian mathematician known for her work in sphere packing. She is a full professor and Chair of Number Theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to ...

. In 2019 he received the

Clay Research Award __NOTOC__ The Clay Research Award is an annual award given by the Oxford-based Clay Mathematics Institute to mathematicians to recognize their achievements in mathematical research. The following mathematicians have received the award: See als ...

. He was included in the 2019 class of fellows 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, ...

"for contributions to number theory, algebraic geometry and geometric representation theory". He was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 2023.

Publications (selected)

"Automorphic period and the central value of Rankin-Selberg L-function"
J. Amer. Math. Soc. 27 (2014), 541–612.
"On arithmetic fundamental lemmas"
Invent. Math., 188 (2012), No. 1, 197–252.
"Fourier transform and the global Gan–Gross–Prasad conjecture for unitary groups"

Annals of Mathematics The ''Annals of Mathematics'' is a mathematical journal published every two months by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. History The journal was established as ''The Analyst'' in 1874 and with Joel E. Hendricks as t ...

180 (2014), No. 3, 971–1049.
"Selmer groups and the indivisibility of Heegner points"
Cambridge Journal of Mathematics 2 (2014), no. 2, 191–253. * (with

Michael Rapoport Michael Rapoport (born 2 October 1948) is an Austrian mathematician. Career Rapoport received his PhD from Paris-Sud 11 University in 1976, under the supervision of Pierre Deligne. He held a chair for arithmetic algebraic geometry at the Uni ...

, Ulrich Terstiege
"On the Arithmetic Fundamental Lemma in the minuscule case"

Compositio Mathematica ''Compositio Mathematica'' is a monthly peer-reviewed mathematics journal established by L.E.J. Brouwer in 1935. It is owned by the Foundation Compositio Mathematica, and since 2004 it has been published on behalf of the Foundation by the London ...

149 (2013), no. 10, 1631–1666. * (with Xinyi Yuan, Shou-Wu Zhang
"The Gross–Kohnen–Zagier theorem over totally real fields"

145 (2009), no. 5, 1147–1162. * (with Xinyi Yuan, Shou-Wu Zhang
"The Gross–Zagier formula on Shimura curves"
Annals of Mathematics Studies vol. 184, Princeton University Press, 2012. * (with

Manjul Bhargava Manjul Bhargava (born 8 August 1974) is a Canadian-American mathematician. He is the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, the Stieltjes Professor of Number Theory at Leiden University, and also holds A ...

, Christopher Skinner
"A majority of elliptic curves over Q satisfy the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture"
preprint. * (with Zhiwei Yun
"Shtukas and the Taylor expansion of L-functions"

186 (2017), No. 3, 767–911. * (with Xinyi Yuan, Shou-Wu Zhang
"Triple product L-series and Gross–Kudla–Schoen cycles"
preprint. * (with Yifeng Liu, Shou-Wu Zhang
"On p-adic Waldspurger formula"
preprint.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Wei 1981 births Living people 21st-century Chinese mathematicians 21st-century Chinese science writers Arithmetic geometers Columbia University alumni Columbia University faculty Educators from Sichuan Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Mathematicians from Sichuan Peking University alumni