Sheldon H. Katz (19 December 1956,
Brooklyn) is an American mathematician, specializing in algebraic geometry and its applications to
string theory.[1]
Background and career
In 1973 Katz won first prize in the
U.S.A. Mathematical Olympiad. He received in 1976 his bachelor's degree from
MIT and in 1980 his Ph.D. from
Princeton University under
Robert C. Gunning with thesis Deformations of Linear Systems, Divisors and Weierstrass Points on Curves.[2] At the
University of Utah, he was an instructor from 1980 to 1984. At the University of Oklahoma he was an assistant professor from 1984 to 1987. At
Oklahoma State University, he became in 1987 an assistant professor, in 1989 an associate professor, in 1994 a full professor, in 1997 Southwestern Bell Professor, and in 1999 Regents Professor. Since 2001 he has been a professor at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he was chair of the department in 2006–2011.
His research on algebraic geometry and its applications to string theory (including
mirror symmetry) and
supersymmetry has been published in prestigious journals in mathematics and physics.
with Bruce Crauder: Crauder, Bruce; Katz, Sheldon (1989). "Cremona transformations with smooth irreducible fundamental locus". American Journal of Mathematics. 111 (2): 289–307.
doi:
10.2307/2374511.
JSTOR2374511.