Laurent Lafforgue

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Laurent Lafforgue

Born November 6, 1966 (1966-11-06) (age 42)
Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Fields Mathematics
Institutions CNRS
Alma mater Université de Paris-Sud
École Normale Supérieure
Known for Proof of Langlands conjectures
Notable awards Clay Research Award (2000)
Fields Medal (2002)

Laurent Lafforgue (born November 6, 1966, in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France) is a French mathematician.

He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1986. In 1994 he received his Ph.D. under the direction of Gérard Laumon in the Arithmetic and Algebraic Geometry team at the Université de Paris-Sud. Currently he is a research director of CNRS, detached as permanent professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (I.H.E.S.) in Bures-sur-Yvette, France.

In 2002 at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing, China he received the Fields Medal together with Vladimir Voevodsky. Lafforgue made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for GLn of a function field. The crucial contribution by Lafforgue to solve this question is the construction of compactifications of certain moduli stacks of shtukas. The monumental proof is the result of more than six years of concentrated efforts.

He received the Clay Research Award in 2000.

Lafforgue is a critic of what he calls "pedagogically correct" in France's educational system.

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