Bjorn Poonen

Bjorn Mikhail Poonen ( born July 27, 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American mathematician who deals with number theory and algebraic geometry.

Poonen studied mathematics and physics at Harvard University with a bachelor's degree summa cum laude 1989. 1994 he was at Kenneth Alan Ribet at the University of California, Berkeley PhD (The Mordell -Weil theorem, Rigidity and Pairings for Drinfeld Modules). As a post - graduate student, he was in 1994/95 at MSRI and Princeton University ( Instructor 1995-1997 ) before 1997 he was assistant professor at Berkeley. He became Associate Professor in 2001 and Professor in 2004. In 2008 he became a professor at MIT, where he is Claude Shannon Professor of Mathematics.

It deals among others with rational points on algebraic varieties, number theory and elliptic curves Unentscheidbarkeitsfragen in number theory ( Hilbert's 10th problem). He also published over algorithms such as Shellsort.

With Felipe Voloch he showed in 2006 ( published in 2010, Annals of Mathematics ) for function body a guess about the Brauer - Manin obstruction ( that this is the only obstruction to the Hasse principle, after the global from the local solvability follows ) ..

Poonen been a visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT ( visiting professor in 2007 ), at the Isaac Newton Institute ( 1998 Rosenbaum Fellow, 2005), at the University of Paris-Sud at the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Institute Henri Poincaré. He is a founding editor of Algebra & Number Theory. 2006 to 2008 he was editor of the International Mathematics Research Notices, 2003-2004 The Journal of Number Theory and 1998-2006 of the Journal de Théorie des Nombres de Bordeaux.

As a student, he won four times the Putnam Competition (1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988) and 1985, the U.S. Mathematical Olympiad and in the same year as a member of the U.S. team the silver medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Poonen was Packard, Guggenheim and Sloan Fellow and Professor Miller, Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2011 he received the Chauvenet Prize for Undecidability in Number Theory He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Writings

• Yuri Tschinkel Publisher: Arithmetic of higher dimensional algebraic varieties, Birkhäuser, Progress in Mathematics, Volume 226, 2004 ( with JF in Voloch: Random diophantine equations, pp. 175-184 )
• Kiran Kedlaya, Ravil Vakil: The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition 1985-2000. Problem, Solutions and Commentary, Mathematical Association of America 2002