Phillip Griffiths

Phillip Augustus Griffiths IV (born October 18, 1938) is an American mathematician, known for his work in the field of geometry, and in particular for the complex manifold approach to algebraic geometry. He is a major developer in particular of the theory of variation of Hodge structure in Hodge theory and moduli theory, which forms part of transcendental algebraic geometry and which also touches upon major and distant areas of differential geometry. He also worked on partial differential equations, coauthored with Shiing-Shen Chern, Robert Bryant and Robert Gardner on exterior differential systems.

Professional career He received his BS from Wake Forest College in 1959 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1962 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "On certain homogeneous complex manifolds", under the supervision of Donald Spencer. Afterwards, he held positions at University of California, Berkeley (1962–1967) and Princeton University (1967–1972). Griffiths was a professor of mathematics at Harvard University from 1972 to 1983. He is co-author, with Joe Harris, of Principles of Algebraic Geometry, a well-regarded textbook on complex algebraic geometry.

Awards and honors Griffiths was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979 and the American Philosophical Society in 1992. In 2008, he was awarded the Wolf Prize (jointly with Deligne and Mumford) and the Brouwer Medal. In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Moreover, in 2014 Griffiths was awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement by the American Mathematical Society. Also in 2014, Griffiths was awarded the Chern Medal for lifetime devotion to mathematics and outstanding achievements.

Selected publications

Articles

with Joe Harris: with S. S. Chern:

Books Mumford–Tate groups and domains: their geometry and arithmetic, with Mark Green and Matt Kerr, Princeton University Press, 2012, in pbk: Exterior differential systems and Euler-Lagrange partial differential equations, with Robert Bryant and Daniel Grossman, University of Chicago Press, 2003, cloth; Introduction to Algebraic Curves, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 1989, Differential Systems and Isometric Embeddings, with Gary R. Jensen, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1987, Topics in Transcendental Algebraic Geometry, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1984, Exterior Differential Systems and the Calculus of Variations, Birkhäuser, Boston, 1983, Rational Homotopy Theory and Differential Forms, with John W. Morgan, Birkhäuser, Boston, 1981, Principles of Algebraic Geometry, with Joe Harris, Wiley, New York, 1978, Entire Holomorphic Mappings in One and Several Complex Variables, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1976,