William Jaco
{{short description|American mathematician}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = William H. Jaco
| image = William Jaco.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption = William Jaco at Oberwolfach in 2012
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1940|7|14|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Grafton, West Virginia, U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| nationality =
| fields = Mathematics, Topology, and Geometry
| workplaces = Rice University, Oklahoma State University
| alma_mater = B.A., Fairmont State College
M.A., Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D (1968) University of Wisconsin-Madison
| doctoral_advisor =
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = JSJ decomposition
| awards = Grace B. Kerr Professor
| footnotes =
}}
William Howard Jaco (born July 14, 1940) is an American mathematician who is known for his role in the Jaco–Shalen–Johannson decomposition theorem and efficient triangulations of 3-manifolds. He retired from Oklahoma State University in 2021 as Regents Professor Emeritus and was appointed adjunct professor at Rice University in 2021.
Education and career
Jaco received a B.A from the Fairmont State College and an M.A. from Pennsylvania State University. He completed his Ph.D. in 1968 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and Rice University before joining the faculty at Oklahoma State University as Head of the Mathematics Dept. from 1982–87 and again served as head from 2011–2018. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study,{{cite web |url=https://www.ias.edu/scholars/william-jaco |title=William Jaco |website=Institute for Advanced Study |accessdate=26 April 2019}} (IAS) the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), and the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM).
He served as the Executive Director of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the Chair-elect, Chair, and Retiring Chair of the Mathematics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as a member of the Advisory Board of the American Institute of Mathematics, as a member of the Board of Mathematical Sciences at the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, as a member of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics. He was an elected member of the Board of Trustees of the American Mathematical Society serving as the Chair of the Board of Trustees, 2014–2015.
One of his doctoral students (joint with Karol Borsuk) was Krystyna Kuperberg.
Awards and honors
In 1998 he was elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and in 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society where he is an Honorary Life Member.[http://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society], retrieved 2013-01-26. He is an Honorary Associate Member of the Moscow Mathematical Society and has received Honorary Recognition for Service to St. Petersburg and Russian Mathematics and Mathematicians. He was elected Honorary Member of Phi Beta Kappa in 2020.
Jaco has held the distinguished positions of Regents Professor (2008){{cite web|last=Jaco|first=William|title=Regent's Professor Status|url=http://regentsprofessors.okstate.edu/regents-professors|accessdate=14 December 2011|archive-date=1 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120301201346/http://regentsprofessors.okstate.edu/regents-professors|url-status=dead}} and Grace B. Kerr Professor at Oklahoma State University where he was recognized as the 2017 Eminent Faculty Member and in 2019 recognized as Regents Distinguished Research Faculty member. He has also held the Lois and Fred Gehring Distinguished Visitor Chair at University of Michigan.
To commemorate Jaco's 70th birthday and his career as a mathematician, Oklahoma State University held a conference in topology called Jacofest in June 2010.{{cite web|last=Jaco|first=William|title=Jaco's Birthday Conference|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/jacofest/|accessdate=14 December 2011}} He was elected an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Chapter of Oklahoma, and inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame, both in 2019.
Research
His mathematical research is in Geometry and Topology where he studies low-dimensional manifolds, decision problems, algorithms and complexity theory. He is best known for the Jaco–Shalen–Johannson decomposition Theorem, his work on normal surfaces, and the co-discovery of efficient triangulations.{{cite web|last=Jaco, Hyam|title=0-efficient triangulations of three-manifolds|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/0-efficient-new.ps|accessdate=14 December 2011|archive-date=6 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206004049/http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/0-efficient-new.ps|url-status=dead}}
Publications
- William Jaco Lectures on Three-Manifold Topology {{ISBN|0-8218-1693-4}}
- W. H. Jaco, P. B. Shalen Seifert Fibered Spaces in Three Manifolds: Memoirs Series No. 220 (Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society; v. 21, no. 220) {{ISBN|0-8218-2220-9}}
- William Jaco, J. Hyam Rubinstein, & Stephan Tillman "Z2 –Thurston Norm and Complexity of 3–Manifolds" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Rubinstein, Tillman|title=Z2 - Thurston Norm and Complexity of 3-Manifolds|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/min-thurston-norm.pdf|accessdate=13 December 2011}}
- William Jaco, J. Hyam Rubinstein, & Stephan Tillman "Coverings and Minimal Triangulations of 3–Manifolds" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Rubinstein, Tillman|title=Coverings and Minimal Triangulations of 3-Manifolds|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/min-cover.pdf|accessdate=13 December 2011}}
- William Jaco, J. Hyam Rubinstein, & Stephan Tillman "Minimal triangulations for an infinite family of lens spaces" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Rubinstein, Tillman|title=Minimal Triangulations for an Infinite Family of Lens Spaces|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/minimaltriang-final.pdf|accessdate=13 December 2011}}
- William Jaco, J. Hyam Rubinstein, & Eric Sedgwick "Finding planar surfaces in knot- and link-manifolds" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Rubinstein, Sedgwick|title=Finding planar surfaces in knot- and link-manifolds|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/Find_Planar-submit-edit.ps|accessdate=14 December 2011}}
- William Jaco & J. Hyam Rubinstein "Layered-triangulations of 3-manifolds" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Rubinstein|title=Layered-triangulations of 3-manifolds|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/layered-triangs-submit.ps|accessdate=14 December 2011}}
- William Jaco & J. Hyam Rubinstein "0-efficient triangulations of three-manifolds" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Hyam|title=0-efficient triangulations of three-manifolds|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/0-efficient-new.ps|accessdate=14 December 2011|archive-date=6 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206004049/http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/0-efficient-new.ps|url-status=dead}}
- William Jaco & Eric Sedgwick "Decision problems in the space of Dehn fillings" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Sedgwick|title=Decision problems in the space of Dehn fillings|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/decision_dehn_e.ps|accessdate=14 December 2011}}
- William Jaco, J. Hyam Rubinstein, & David Letscher "Algorithms for essential surfaces in 3-manifolds" {{cite web|last=Jaco, Letscher, Rubinstein|title=Algorithms for essential surfaces in 3-Manifolds|url=http://www.math.okstate.edu/~jaco/Documents/algorithms7.ps|accessdate=14 December 2011}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.math.okstate.edu/user/21/ Oklahoma State Bio] of W. Jaco
- {{MathGenealogy|id=677}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jaco, William}}
Category:20th-century American mathematicians
Category:21st-century American mathematicians
Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
Category:Oklahoma State University faculty
Category:People from Grafton, West Virginia
Category:Fairmont State University alumni
Category:Pennsylvania State University alumni
Category:Educators from West Virginia
Category:Fellows of the American Mathematical Society