Robert McCann (mathematician)

{{short description|Canadian applied mathematician}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Robert J. McCann

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| image = Robert J. McCann Berkeley 2013.jpg

| landscape = yes

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| caption = McCann in Berkeley in 2013

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| fields = Applied mathematics

| nationality = Canadian

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| work_institution = University of Toronto

| alma_mater = Princeton University

| thesis_title = A Convexity Theory For Interacting Gases And Equilibrium Crystals

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| thesis_year = 1994

| doctoral_advisor = Elliott H. Lieb

| awards = AMS Centennial Fellowship (1996)
Monroe Martin Prize (2000)
Coxeter–James Prize (2005)
Jeffery–Williams Prize (2017)
W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize (2023)
Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics (2025)

}}

Robert John McCann {{post-nominals|country=CAN|FRSC}} is a Canadian mathematician, known for his work in transportation theory. He has worked as a professor at the University of Toronto since 1998, and as Canada Research Chair in Mathematics, Economics, and Physics since 2020.

Life and work

McCann was raised in Windsor, Ontario. He studied engineering and physics at Queen's University before graduating with a degree in math, and earned a PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 1994.{{cite web|url=http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/people-and-contacts/scientific-advisory-panel#RMcCann|title=Scientific Advisory Panel|website=The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences|date=24 December 2014 |access-date=3 June 2019}} McCann was a Tamarkin Assistant Professor at Brown University from 1994, before joining the University of Toronto Department of Mathematics in the fall of 1998.{{cite journal|title=New Faculty Appointments|date=July 2000|journal=Mathematics|publisher=Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto|pages=4–5|url=http://www.math.toronto.edu/dept/newsletters/MATH_NL_00.pdf}} He served as editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics from 2007 to 2016, and again since 2022.{{cite news|url=https://cms.math.ca/MediaReleases/2017/2017-jw-prize|title= Professor Robert McCann to receive the 2017 CMS Jeffery-Williams Prize|location=Ottawa|publisher=Canadian Mathematical Society|date=23 February 2017|access-date=3 June 2019}} He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul in 2014.{{cite book|author=McCann, Robert J.|chapter=Academic wages, singularities, phase transitions and pyramid schemes|title=Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians (Seoul 2014)|volume=3|pages=835–849|year=2014}} He was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012, of the Royal Society of Canada in 2014, of the Fields Institute in 2015 and of the Canadian Mathematical Society in 2020. In 2025 he received the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics.[http://www.ams.org/news?news_id=7381 Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics 2025]

References

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