Benedict Gross

Benedict Hyman Gross the George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at Harvard University, and Dean of Harvard College.

Gross is known for his work in number theory, particularly the Gross–Zagier theorem on L-functions of elliptic curves, and related topics in algebraic geometry, automorphic forms, and representation theory. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1986 and a Cole Prize in 1987. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Philosophical Society, and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Life and career Early life and education Benedict Hyman Gross was born on June 22, 1950, in South Orange, New Jersey, to Joel and Terry Gross. Terry Gross (née Stavisky) was born in New York City to Polish immigrants who had also moved to the United States as teenagers.

Gross and his family moved to Santa Monica, California, at the age of 5, before returning to New Jersey during second grade.

He initially studied physics at Harvard University, deterred from mathematics because he thought that his classmates were better prepared than he was, but switched to mathematics in his sophomore year after enjoying the Math 55 course that was taught by Andrew M. Gleason.

Career Gross was an assistant professor at Princeton University from 1978 to 1982, a maître de conférences at Université de Paris VII in 1980, and an associate professor at Brown University from 1982 to 1985. He retired from Harvard University as a professor emeritus and joined the University of California, San Diego, as a professor in 2016.

He was the mathematical consultant for the 1980 film It's My Turn containing the scene in which actress Jill Clayburgh, portraying a mathematics professor, impeccably proves the snake lemma. Gross was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study from 2012 to 2017 and the executive committee of the International Mathematical Union from 2015 to 2019. He joined the Board of Directors of Scripps Research in 2018. His work with Don Zagier on the Gross–Zagier formula in 1986 has been influential in modern number theory. and led to breakthroughs on the class number problem of Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Awards and honors Gross received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1986. In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992 and as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017.

Major publications