Michael Aizenman

Michael Aizenman ( born August 28, 1945 in Nizhny Tagil, Soviet Union) is an Israeli- American mathematical physicist and mathematician.

Aizenman studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem ( Bachelor 1969) and received his doctorate in 1975 at Joel Lebowitz at Yeshiva University ( Belfer Graduate School ) in New York City. From 1974 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University and in 1975 from Princeton University with Elliott Lieb. In 1977 he became assistant professor at Princeton, in 1982 associate professor at Rutgers University, where he rose to become Professor in 1984. In 1987 he was again at the Courant Institute ( as a professor in both the departments of physics and mathematics) and as of 1990 professor of physics and mathematics at Princeton. He has been a visiting scientist at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge (2007), the Institute for Advanced Study ( 1984/85, 1991/92, 1997/98), at the Weizmann Institute, at the University of Tel Aviv, at the ETH Zurich ( 1998), Caltech (1992, as Fairchild Distinguished Scholar ), at the University of Paris and at the IHES (1985).

Aizenman is known for work in statistical mechanics ( such as phase transitions in the Ising model in three and more dimensions and quantum gases) and mathematical quantum field theory, where he proved triviality for scalar quantum field theories in more than four dimensions. It also deals with phase transitions in percolation theory ( the conformal invariance questions and sharpness of the phase transition ), and disordered systems such as localization in random Schrödinger operators and spin glasses (connection to kompetiven particle systems via cavity- Dynamics perspective). Besides Lebowitz and Lieb, he worked among others with Barry Simon, Jürg Fröhlich, Herbert Spohn, Sheldon Goldstein.

1981 to 1984 he was a Sloan Fellow and 1984/85 Guggenheim Fellow. In 1990 he received the Norbert Wiener Prize and in 2002 the Brouwer Medal of the Dutch Mathematical Society. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Cergy- Pontoise ( 2009). In 1997 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Since 2001 he has been editor of the Communications in Mathematical Physics. In 1983 he was invited speaker at the ICM in Warsaw ( Stochastic geometry in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory ). In 1982 he was awarded the Guido Stampacchia price of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. In 2002, he held the Sacler Lectures in Tel Aviv. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

In 2010 he received the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics.