Education
He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1965.
mathematician university professor topologist
He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1965.
Along with his significant mathematical contributions, he is an influential figure in the field, with over 50 doctoral students and his famous problem list. He soon became an assistant professor at University of California, Los Los Angeles While there he developed his "torus trick" which enabled him to solve, in dimensions greater than four (with additional joint work with Larry ), four of Milnor"s seven most important problems in geometric topology. In 1995 he became the first mathematician to receive the National Academy of Sciences, USA Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences for his problem list in low-dimensional topology.
He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001.
In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Kirby is also the President of Mathematical Sciences Publishers, a small non-profit academic publishing house that focuses on mathematics and engineering journals.
American Mathematical Society. National Academy of Sciences.