Alexander Lubotzky

Alexander Lubotzky (Hebrew: אלכסנדר לובוצקי‎, born 28 June 1956) is an Israeli mathematician and former politician who is currently a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an adjunct professor at Yale University.[1] He served as a member of the Knesset for The Third Way party between 1996 and 1999. In 2018 he won the Israel Prize for his accomplishments in maths and computer science.

Not to be confused with Alexander Lubotsky.

Alexander Lubotzky
Date of birth (1956-06-28) 28 June 1956
Place of birthTel Aviv, Israel
Knessets14
Faction represented in Knesset
1996–1999The Third Way
Alma materBar Ilan University
Known forGeometric group theory, the study of lattices in Lie groups, representation theory of discrete groups and Kazhdan's property (T), the study of subgroup growth and applications of group theory to combinatorics and computer science (expander graphs) and error correcting codes
Spouse(s)Yardenna Lubotzky
Childrensix living offspring
AwardsLandau Award (1979);
Bergman Memorial Prize (1980–1);
Erdős Prize (1990);
Sunyer i Balaguer Prize (1992,2002);
Rothschild Prize (2002);
ISI highly cited researcher (2003);
Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2005);
Honorary degree from the University of Chicago (2006);
The Rector's Prize of the Hebrew University (2007);
European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant (2008);
Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2014);
European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant (2015);
Israel Prize (2018)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsHebrew University, Stanford, University of Chicago, Columbia, Yale, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NYU, ETH Zurich
ThesisPro-finite groups and the congruence subgroup problem (1979)
Doctoral advisorHillel Furstenberg

Early life and education

Lubotzky was born in Tel Aviv to Holocaust survivors. His father, Iser Lubotzky was a Partisan, Irgun officer and the legal advisor of Herut. After school, Lubotzky did his IDF national service as a captain officer in a special intelligence and communication unit. He studied mathematics at Bar-Ilan University during highschool, gaining a BA (summa cum laude) and continued to direct PhD. He worked as a professor of mathematics at the Hebrew University, becoming head of the department (1994–1996). He has been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Chicago, with visits at Columbia, Yale, NYU and ETH Zurich.

Mathematical career

Lubotzky holds a Maurice and Clara Weil Chair in mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is known for contributions to geometric group theory, the study of lattices in Lie groups, representation theory of discrete groups and Kazhdan's property (T), the study of subgroup growth and applications of group theory to combinatorics and computer science (expander graphs) and error correcting codes.

Lubotzky received the Erdős Prize in 1990.[2] in the years 1994–1996 Lubotzky was the chairman of Einstein Institute of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 1992 Lubotzky was a recipient of the Sunyer i Balaguer Prize from the Institut d'Estudis Catalans for his book "Discrete Groups Expanding Graphs and Invariant Measures" and again in 2002 with Dan Segal for their book "Subgroup Growth".[3] In 2002 he has received the Rothschild Prize in mathematics.[4] Lubotzky is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher in mathematics since 2003.

Lubotzky was elected a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.[5] In 2005-6 He led in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton a year long program on "Pro-finite groups and the congruence subgroup problem". In 2006, he got an honorary degree from the University of Chicago for his contribution to Modern mathematics.[6]

In 2008 Lubotzky received the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant for exceptional established research leaders.[7] In 2011 Lubotzky was chosen to be the keynote speaker at the joint meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in New Orleans. Lubotzky's keynote address in front of the conference's 6,000 attendees marked the first time that an Israeli was the keynote speaker at one of these conferences.[8] In 2012 he was a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research Center.

In 2014, he was elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.[9] In 2015 Lubotzky received the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant for exceptional established research leaders,[10] becoming one of the only researchers receiving the grant twice.

In honor of Lubotzky's sixtieth birthday The Israel Institute for Advanced Studies hosted a conference (Midrasha) from 5 November through 11 November 2016, with scholars from around the world convening to celebrate his work, impact, and collaborations.[11]

In 2018 Lubotzky received the Israel Prize, for mathematics.[12] Lubotzky gave a Plenary lecture in the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[13]

Political career

A founding member of The Third Way in March 1996, he chaired its secretariat and was elected to the Knesset in the May 1996 elections. He served as a member of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee; Constitution, Law and Justice Committee; Status of Women Committee and the Science and Technology Committee, and chaired the subcommittee on the Y2K Bug.

As an MK, Prof. Lubotzky was mainly known for his compromise proposals on religious issues and pluralism. He was actively involved in setting up a solution to the conversion bill crisis via the Ne'eman Commission, working to avoid a conflict between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. Prof. Lubotzky also co-drafted a comprehensive proposal for a new covenant for religion-state affairs in Israel with MK Yossi Beilin.

Personal life

Lubotzky married Yardenna (daughter of Murray Roston), a lecturer in Art History and English, in 1980. The couple had six children; the oldest, Asael, was injured severely in the Battle of Bint Jbeil in Lebanon, while serving as an officer in the IDF in the 2006 Lebanon war and after his rehabilitation became a physician.[14]

Prizes and academic honors

Books
  • Varieties of Representations of finitely generated groups (with Andy Magid), 1985
  • Discrete Groups, Expanding Graphs and Invariant Measures, 1994
  • Tree Lattices (with Hyman Bass), 2000[15]
  • Subgroup Growth (with Dan Segal), 2001[16]
  • מבנים אלגבריים: חבורות, חוגים ושדות, ‎2018

References
  1. Curriculum Vitae Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  2. About the Institute Einstein Institute of Mathematics
  3. Sunyer i Balaguer Prize Awarded, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, vol 49 (2002), no. 6, p. 687
  4. "Official site of the Rothschild Prize". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  5. American Academy Elections, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 52 (2005), no. 7, p. 764
  6. Honorary Degrees Archived 8 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine University of Chicago
  7. Hebrew U. ties with Oxford University in number of new European Research Council grants in past two years Archived 3 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  8. Top Israeli Mathematician to Be Honored Arutz Sheva
  9. Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities add five new researchers to its prestigious ranks The Jerusalem Post
  10. ERC Advanced Grants 2015
  11. The 20th Midrasha Mathematicae celebrating Alex Lubotzky's 60th Birthday Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem
  12. World famous Israeli mathematician to receive 2018 Israel Prize, Arutz 7, Rochel Sylvetsky, 20 February 2018
  13. Alexander Lubotzky: How computer science and math intertwine, ICM 2018, 7 August
  14. Lubotzky, Asael (2016). From the Wilderness and Lebanon. Koren Publishers Jerusalem. ISBN 978-1592644179.
  15. Lifschitz, Lucy (2003). "Review of Tree lattices by Hyman Bass and Alexander Lubotzky". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 40: 247–252. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-03-00978-9.
  16. Grigorchuk, Rostislav I. (2004). "Review of Subgroup growth by Alexander Lubotzky and Dan Segal". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 41: 253–256. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-03-01003-6.
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