William Fulton

William Edgar Fulton (born August 29, 1939) is an American mathematician, specializing in algebraic geometry.

Education and career He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University in 1961 and his doctorate from Princeton University in 1966. His Ph.D. thesis, written under the supervision of Gerard Washnitzer, was on The fundamental group of an algebraic curve.

Fulton worked at Princeton and Brandeis University from 1965 until 1970, when he began teaching at Brown. In 1987, he moved to the University of Chicago. He moved to the University of Michigan in 1998, retiring in 2020. As of 2026, Fulton had supervised the doctoral work of 24 students at Brown, Chicago, and Michigan. In 2010, he was awarded the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Selected works