Peter Williston Shor is an American professor of applied mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, most famous for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor"s algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially faster than the best currently-known algorithm running on a classical computer.
Education
While attending Tamalpais High School, in Mill Valley, California, he placed third in the 1977 United States of America Mathematical Olympiad. After graduating that year, he won a silver medal at the International Mathematics Olympiad in Yugoslavia (the United States team achieved the most points per country that year). He received his Bachelor of Surgery in Mathematics in 1981 for undergraduate work at Caltech, and was a Putnam Fellow in 1978.
He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985.
His doctoral advisor was F. Thomson Leighton, and his thesis was on probabilistic analysis of bin-packing algorithms.
Career
After graduating, he spent one year in a post-doctoral position at the University of California at Berkeley, and then accepted a position at Bell Laboratories. Shor began his Massachusetts Institute of Technology position in 2003. Currently the Henry Adams Morss and Henry Adams Morss, Junior.
Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he also is affiliated with CSAIL and the Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP).
On October 1, 2011, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Membership
National Academy of Sciences.