Alan Hoffman (mathematician)

Alan Jerome Hoffman (* May 30, 1924 in New York City ) is an American mathematician.

Hoffman served from 1943 to 1946 in the U.S. Army. He studied at Columbia University with a bachelor's degree in 1947 and his doctorate in mathematics in 1950 at Edgar Raymond Lorch ( On the foundations of geometry inversion ) 1950/51 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study, and then until 1956 as a mathematician at the National Bureau of standards. 1956/57, he was a research liaison officer at the Office of Naval Research in London and from 1957 to 1961 management consultant to General Electric. From 1961, he worked at IBM in the Thomas J. Watson Research Center. In 2002, he went there to retire.

At the same time, he was from 1965 to 1976 Adjunct Professor at the City University of New York. He was also an adjunct professor or visiting professor at the Technion in 1965, 1975-1980 and 1991 at Yale University, from 1980 to 1991 at Stanford University, from 1990 to 1996 at Rutgers University and from 1992 to 1993 at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

It addressed, among others, linear algebra, linear optimization, graph theory, combinatorics and geometry. Hoffman holds seven patents on mathematical algorithms.

He was the founding editor of the journal Linear Algebra and its Applications.

In 1978, he was IBM Fellow. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (1982 ), the New York Academy of Sciences (1975 ) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1987). In 1986 he was made an honorary Doctor of the Technion. In 1992 he was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize.